The economic potential of minority groups is common knowledge, written about extensively and widely acknowledged - but still few companies react with grass roots changes to their marketing strategies. After 20 years and numerous studies on the subject of multicultural marketing very little has changed. Why is corporate America still so afraid?
Today minorities groups make up 25% of the United States Population with a predicted increase to 33% by 2010 and 53% by 2040 pointing to the drastic increases in the median income, population, and education of minority groups throughout America.
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Why then is a target audience with combined buying power of $1.5 trillion still ignored, underestimated and handled with kid gloves? |
America is a Heterogeneous society that refuses to outgrow a deeply entrenched homogeneous approach to marketing. Like a child with a comfort blanket corporations cling to what they have always done and are familiar with, regardless of the fact that it no-longer works. When it comes to Minority Marketing, accountability is a farce and tracking non-existent. Couple that with a checklist mentality to ensure companies have demonstrated multicultural diversity publicly and you get a commitment to minority marketing from the majority of American companies that is about a useful as a chocolate teapot.
Quick fixes and short cuts have not worked and the adage that something is better than nothing is a big fat lie, especially when it comes to a target market that is highly relationship oriented and often demanding of traditional values such as community and faith.
Watch out though America this audience will not blindly follow, is immune to many of the traditional marketing tricks and does not build loyalty easily if at all.
To properly target minority groups effectively winning long-term consumer loyalty, we must first be ready to acknowledge:
- 5th Avenue marketing agencies have largely got no idea how to target this sector and have been getting it wrong for years at the expense of the clients they represent and the communities they serve. The few examples of success involve billion dollar budgets and hugely popular athletes. Neither of which are at the disposal of the average American business.
- Corporate America has a history of racism and prejudice, which allows them to stick their head in the sand while simultaneously keeping an eye on the horizon. We must decide - which will it be?
In order to really understand this market you have to be willing to invest in them. Not dusting off the crumbs from your marketing budget, but breaking bread with them - which so far Corporate America has been reluctant to do - opting instead for a distance learning approach that keeps minorities at bay while doing the 'right thing, because we have to'.
This business and marketing specialists handbook leaves the land of elevated language and fluffy marketing terms that have been a cover-up for poor results and swaps all that for a grounded approach with a precedence of success.
There is a financial return on investment for those who implement effective Minority Marketing (MM) and a social responsibility for them to do so.
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