ANA Marketing Maestros

Generate Exponential Revenue by Investing in the Booming Halal Market

By Irina Skaya

Today, Islam is the fastest growing religion on earth with the Muslim population estimated to reach two billion by 2010. The global Halal food market is estimated to be worth $632 billion a year.. A new study by JWT points out that the six million or so Muslims in America are, on average, richer and better educated than the general population. Two-thirds of Muslim households make more than $50,000 a year and a quarter earn over $100,000; the national average is $42,000. Two-thirds of American Muslims have a college degree, compared with less than half of the general population. Muslim families also tend to have more children. With these stats, businesses should indeed be tapping at this growing market segment.

An article in this week’s Time Magazine shows that even non-food companies like Nokia and LG are catering towards Muslim customers. For instance, Nokia provides free downloadable recitations from the Koran and maps showing major mosque locations in the Middle East. LG has an application that helps users find the direction of Mecca.  What’s really interesting is that hotels, banks, and other organizations that operate according to Shari’a law are doing well despite the global downturn. 

And the fast-food restaurants such as McDonald’s in Singapore have seen an influx of millions of patrons annually after obtaining Halal certifications. Since being certified, “Halal, KFC, Burger King and Taco Bell have all seen an increase of 20 percent in customers” (Hairalah, cited in Hazair, 2007a: 13). Nestle has become the biggest multi-national food manufacturer for Muslims, producing halal food in 75 of its 481 factories and earning over $3 billion in annual sales.

To read up on marketing to Muslims, visit:

http://bit.ly/8Mu4k

http://bit.ly/mcZzb

http://bit.ly/2lP1UC

Who am I? Tapping into the Chinese consumer market

By: Irina Skaya

Born in a small town that is unfamiliar with traffic lights and shopping malls, in Moldova (located between Romania and Ukraine) and growing up in the Big Apple, I continue to struggle with cultural duality and self-identity. On one hand, growing up in a diverse city like New York, I am more open-minded about other cultures than my parents. But I am always reminded that I am not American enough because I don’t eat hash browns, bacon and eggs for breakfast. On the other hand, I am not completely emerged in the Moldavian culture either because I was raised during the former USSR and I only speak Russian, not Moldavian.

But I am not alone. Whether you’ve emigrated from Moldova, Latin America or China, first and second generations struggle with cultural duality—we are pushed around by our American counterparts for not being American enough, and by families for being ashamed of our own heritage.  At last week’s ANA Multicultural Marketing Conference, Starcom Media Vest Group (SMG) presented marketers with insights into the cultural identities of Chinese Americans, and discussed the importance of researching the values and motivations of this group in order to truly connect to this market.

Although immigrants in general share similarities in regards to the assimilation into the American culture, the assimilation and acculturation models are very unique to the Chinese member community. For instance, the first generation is considered to be the protectors of the culture—they settle into metropolitan areas that are culturally saturated in order to maintain same traditions and rituals. The second generation, born on the American soil, is the forefathers of what it means to be Chinese-American.  They struggle with self-identity during the early part of their lives—they do not feel fully Chinese nor fully American. As they mature, they begin to embrace their culture and heritage by integrating their culture into American life. This group is known as the, “Hyphen in-between.” How does this duality and having two identities impact the Chinese sense of consumerism?

As marketers, it is critical to align messages based on the audience’s relationship to the following core pillars of value: tradition, frugality, family, worth ethic, education, food and entrepreneurship. The state of duality helps explain how participation with English-leaning communication approaches tethered to cultural nuance is vital to messaging. The growing paradox of Westernization and a desire to retain traditional cultural touchstones such as language will create a need for communicating in a nuanced and balanced way. Chinese Americans are the largest consumer of in-language media. The primary language spoken in families and among friends will influence the media consumption. The other indicator is generations. The younger generations are more English-leading as expected. However, most of them have seen Chinese media, consume it when they spend time with the older people in their families—this calls for more balance. In fact, the overall consumption of television is down by 35% and an increase of 53% in time-shifting because of lack of relevance of in-language media and antiquated stereotypes such as emasculated and sexualized Asian Americans. What does the Chinese American identity morph into moving forward?  How do we know this community aligns with our category and brands?

For a more in-depth analysis of the cultural identities study, visit www.ana.net.

89 Days Till the DTV Transition...

By: Irina Skaya

With 89 days left till DTV transition, it is important to understand why it’s happening and who will be affected. On February 17, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. all television stations across the U.S. are required to broadcast digitally only, phasing out analog broadcasting. The digital TV transition promises better sound, clearer pictures and most-importantly, multi-cast channels that will allow for more content and better targeted information.  Earlier this morning, the National Association of Broadcasters forewarned the audience at the Multicultural Marketing Conference about who will be affected by the transition and discussed what advertisers can do to smooth out the analog-to-digital process.

Although most of us are DTV-ready or have made plans to purchase new TV sets with a digital turner or a converter box, or subscribe to a pay-TV service, many seniors, low-income families and those who reside in rural areas will need to upgrade . So, how many are approximately affected? Approximately 19.6 million (17%) of US households receive their television signals through a rooftop antenna. Another 34.5 million (31%) have some over the air usage, meaning they may have a family room set connected to cable, but their bedroom set may broadcast over the antenna. And who specifically is affected? Many of the low-income families include Hispanics. In fact, as many as forty-one percent of Hispanic house-holds where Spanish is the primary language, will need to upgrade their TV sets.  This number is especially important to multicultural advertisers whose target audiences  are Hispanics.

What are some marketing efforts being put in place to spread the word about the upcoming digital transition?

From local churches, analog shut-off tests to “Trekkers” and monitors in grocery shops and gas pumps, DTV transition messaging is targeting Hispanics at work, in their homes and where they hang out. The television industry’s plan of $1.1 billion has made the transition process affordable for anyone. Each household regardless of income can apply for up to two coupons that run between $40 and $75. So far 35 million coupons have  been requested from 18 million households. If a household orders coupons, there is a 90 day expiration day, and once it aspires, they cannot get another coupon. With the numerous number of efforts from the broadcasting industry and the government, the percentage of people unprepared for DTV transition is expected to be low.  As advertisers, we can help aid the transition by promoting the transition to our clients via emails, events, and online efforts.

How President-elect Barack Obama became the first African-American president of the U.S.

By: Irina Skaya

Bob Dylan’s song, “The Times They Are A-Changin” is truer today than ever before. As Martinez and Garcia become two of the top twenty most-common surnames, and salsa outsells ketchup, the most notable change is the victory of the first African-American President-elect Barack Obama. How did the first black president win the 2008 election when so many Americans thought it was merely impossible?

Roland S. Martin, American journalist and CNN contributor spoke to 250 marketers at the Multicultural Marketing Conference about the important role the Latino vote played in the 2008 election.  Not only did this year’s election had a record Hispanic turnout, but Latinos played a key role in swinging the election outcome. In the past, Cuban-Americans who used to make up the majority of Hispanic population in Florida have consistently voted Republican. Today, the Hispanic population is much more diverse, comprised of Puerto Ricans, Central and South Americans—this shift in population and the combination of black and Hispanic voters have directly influenced the 27 electoral votes in the swing state of Florida.

The credit for Obama’s win doesn’t only go to record turnouts of Hispanic and black voters, but to his flawless presidential campaign. I agree with Martin—his campaign is the epitome of an integrated marketing campaign.  Its structure is already being studied and will continue to be talked about. One interesting thing that Martin pointed out was the many Americans believed Hillary Clinton was going to win the primaries because after all, she had the “money, the resources and the staff,” not to mention the popularity as First Lady. Obama had to start from scratch. However, he recognized the generational shift, targeting the youth demographic. His team was ‘right on the money’ to use social networks to target the youth population that would otherwise not be as politically active. One other thing that Obama did was he did not target the African American population because he had their vote already. He targeted the undecided voters in swing states like Florida. In October, just weeks prior to the election, I was watching television in my hotel room at the Annual Masters of Marketing Conference, and I remember thinking about the frequency of the political ads for Obama.  He spent his ad dollars wisely, on target audience whom he depended on to win.

The practices of advertisers must change and so should television programming. Martin said the ads and programming must reflect the changes in the population. He asked advertisers, “How do you in your shops begin to operate as of January 20th, 12:01 p.m.?" He didn’t answer marketers with a clear-cut answer, but he did leave them with a smart advice, “You might want to change it up a little bit or you’ll be left behind. “

Obama's victory speech:

U.S. Latinos are bilingual, your ads should be too!

By Irina Skaya

Today mun2 and Yahoo! Telemundo relaunch a live bilingual show similar to MTV’s TRL on pepsimúsica.com, a two-day old interactive multiplatform Website used to target bicultural Latino youth within the U.S.

In the vast swaths of America where only Español is required to function, there is often a misconception that only Spanish is spoken amongst our Latino amigos. Certainly, Latino youth is proud of their heritage and are in-tune with their cultura – second and third generation Latinos may speak Spanish en sus casas, but they are just as immersed in the American culture. Anyone who has immigrated to the U.S. as a child, like myself, knows that after a few years of being on the mainland, you don’t speak perfect English nor your native tongue. Latino youth speaks Spanglish, the most important contemporary linguistic phenomenon in the U.S.

However, Spanglish is more than language, it is a lifestyle, dictating what kind of música, películas, and events Latinos are interested in. Take a look inside the music industry – top rated Latino artists such as Daddy Yankee and Fat Joe have been rapping in both, Spanish and English for years. Then, why do multicultural advertisers still advertise only in Spanish to target Latinos? That is the biggest mistake Hispanic advertisers can make, particularly because all Latin American countries have diverse dialects. Besides, Latinos navigate back and forth from Spanish to English. Remember, they hablan inglés, too.

Now, with the Hispanic trends indicating that Latinos spend more time online than the general market, multicultural advertising has increased in the Internet space. Even though most advertisers have moved away from directly translating ad copy from English to Spanish, a lot of ads remain written entirely in Spanish. Pepsi is among the first (including Sí TV) to target bicultural Latino Youth and to speak to them in their language - Spanglish. Recognizing that technology is crucial to this group because it helps connect them with family and friends, and flaunt their pride in Latino identity, the initiator of sponsorship for music has created an interactive and user-generated site that will allow users to vote for their artistas favoritos, post comments, upload their photos and videos, influence the top 20 countdown and more.

This is going to be viral and cutting edge– it puts consumers in the driver’s seat, giving them the content they want, when they want it and most importantly, present in it in the way they understand it. Tune in today at 5 p.m. to watch the premiere of the Pepsi Música. I will - soy admiradora de Pepsi Música!

Technorati tags: user-generated multicultural marketing Latinos Hispanic marketing Spanglish

Multicultural Marketing Conference Highlights

By: Irina Skaya

ANA’s generosity and leadership in the marketing community was at its best at last week’s Multicultural Marketing Conference.  From donating $10,000 to Ronald McDonald House Charities  to recognizing the hard-work behind the most successful multicultural campaigns, this ANA conference can be considered one of the best multicultural events this year.

Thanks to all who've contributed to this great event!

  

The photos can also be saved to your desktop by accessing our photo gallery.

What Makes An Award Winning Multicultural Ad?

By: Irina Skaya

With the Multicultural Marketing Conference around the corner, this is a great time to lend my two cents on multicultural advertising and this year’s submissions. 

By no means am I a connoisseur of multicultural advertising, but I believe there is often a misconception that the higher the production cost, the greater the production value and, thus the better the commercial.  In the past, it was challenging to judge print and television ads in the same category due to disparate production values (according to our judges). With the fast-growing media technologies, it is even harder to judge flash banners and digital billboards with traditional television ads.  It is especially hard for smaller agencies to compete with larger agencies that may have bigger budgets to produce high-tech ads. 

Good news for small agencies - having been directly involved with the judging of the Multicultural Excellence Awards for two years, the winning campaigns have been agencies with the most creative messages and in-depth consumer insights that were successfully executed, not the ones with the most complex medium.  John Hibbs would pat me on the back when I say, “Medium is NOT the message!” At least, not according to our judges (the majority consists of client-side marketers) – the message (content) and executing against this message to produce relevant ads for the targeted audience are the secrets behind top multicultural campaigns. 

I particularly like the Anheuser-Busch ad campaign for Bud Light that is amongst the finalists in the General Market category. I know some of you must be thinking I am either a heavy beer drinker or have stock options in the company, neither – I honestly appreciate the sense of humor and creativity in their ads.  Take a look yourself and I guarantee you will laugh your socks off.

Another suggestion that I’d give to agencies is - for a brand to be successful, instead of directly translating ad copy from English to another foreign language or recording a voice-over in a foreign language for an already existing TV commercial, focus on your demographic and make your ads resonate with and relevant to your consumer.  I’ve also seen ads that evoke emotion and thought succeed the most.  Speaking of relevancy and thought-provoking, here is a Black History Month television ad from a Verizon Communications campaign (African American category) whose premise was to acknowledge those who are creating a change and impacting the lives of African Americans today rather than only highlighting the Black History Month icons. Their second creative was even more hip – an audio ad with J. Ivy’s spoken word embedded in a brochure.  Although I can’t show you the brochure, take a look at the ad below – one of my favorites.

The point I am trying to make is: new media is impressive, but if you are a small agency with low funds, you can win too! It’s still about the consumer insights and the message. I encourage all advertisers and agencies to enter this competition next year - small, big, those who have adopted the new media model and those who are still creating ads using traditional media. To check out this year's winners, click here.

For the 2007 Multicultural Marketing Conference photos, click here.

Ten Touch Points of Multicultural Marketing and Diversity

Earlier this week I had the privilege of chairing ANA’s annual Masters of Multicultural Marketing Conference. In my opening remarks, I shared with the attendees ten “touch points” from the past year, mostly from current events, that have made me think about multicultural marketing and diversity. I’d love to know what your touch points are, related to multicultural marketing and diversity. Please feel free to share them back.

Touch Point #1: The 300- millionth American: We hit a landmark in the United States in October. The Census Bureau announced the U.S. population hit 300-million.  Given the fact that Hispanics account for about half of the U.S. population growth and California has more births than any other state, it was widely speculated that this historic American was likely born in Los Angeles – and was a Chicano boy born to immigrant parents.

Touch Point #2: The Growth of China: Let’s go from 300 million to 1.3 billion.  There’s a gold rush into China as China is now one of the top investment opportunities in the world and the new place for global businesses to expand. For the first time in history, Chinese is now the second most prevalent foreign language spoken in U.S. households after Spanish. And, watch out, the next Olympics are in Beijing in 2008.

Touch Point #3: Survivor Segments by Race: Many of us were stunned when Survivor, the granddaddy of reality shows, announced in late August that it would segregate its tribes for the upcoming season by race – the African-American tribe, Hispanic tribe, Asian tribe, and white tribe. According to the show’s producers, this was a response to past criticism that the show was too white.

My initial reaction to this was shock … but then I decided that if this elevated the dialogue in American about race, that perhaps it would be a good thing.  Of course, just two weeks into the season, Survivor opted to do away with their four race-warring tribes by blending them into two diverse groups.

Winners and Insights from the Multicultural Marketing Conference

A special congratulations goes to the winners of the ANA’s Annual Multicultural Excellence awards, which honor those who have created outstanding multicultural advertising campaigns and are sponsored by the ANA Multicultural Marketing Committee. Winners included:

In the General Market category, which was voted on by conference attendees, Lowe’s Companies with agency BBDO New York.

In the Asian category, MetLife, with agency partner IW Group.

In the African American category, Tyson Foods for their “Powered by Tyson” campaign with E. Morris Communications.

In the GLBT category,Pernod Ricard USA for their Stolichnaya Vodka campaign with agency partner Double Platinum.

In the Hispanic category, Procter & Gamble for Tide, with Conill Saatchi & Saatchi.

And the Campaign with Significant Results was Verizon Communications’, created with partner Burrell Communications.

These brands and agencies have worked together to create remarkable multicultural campaigns- let’s hope more marketers follow in their footsteps.

Read on to see insights from the conference...

Magic Johnson: Urban Marketer Extraordinaire

By Will Waugh

Magic Johnson spoke last night at our Multicultural Marketing Conference here in Los Angeles.

What a pleasant surprise. I was looking forward to his talk -- but expected nothing quite like this. Magic, who went from dishing assists to dishing lattes in urban communities, showed a razor sharp business acumen. So many famous athletes and celebrities waste their social currency and fade into oblivion.

Not Magic.

He has turned his fame and savvy business skills into an urban empire built on goodwill. He has over 100 Starbucks, 30+ Burger Kings, 6 AMC Movie Theatres, 20+ Washington Mutual Loan Centers and a $600 million dollar urban fund. His brand is the uncontested #1 urban brand operating in over 80 cities and touching 30 million people a year.

Insights from Magic's talk:

• Build your brand and make money in urban markets. Don't believe the stereotypes. For instance, his average transaction at his Starbucks is the same as wealthier suburban markets.
• Customize your environment to the audience and make it relevant. (Customer insights being the overriding theme).
• Create a home away from home experience.
• Urban markets are some of the most brand loyal customers you will make. Don't disappoint them.
• Give back to the community.
• Focus on the message but more importantly, focus on the messenger.
• If a multicultural business partner has failed you, don't hold it against the entire market.