The Multicultural Marketing Equation: Media, Attitudes, Brands, and Spending
In the Spring of 2006, a multicultural online consumer research study was conducted with approximately 3000 respondents in English. About 1000 questionnaires each were completed by Non Hispanic Whites (NHW) and Hispanics (H); and almost 500 each by African Americans (AA) and Asians (A). The main purpose of this study was to assess the degree to which multicultural marketing efforts can aim at cultural commonalities or whether these efforts must be culturally targeted.
This study addresses the ongoing debate in marketing about the merits of directing programs to the common denominators across cultures or having specialized efforts directed to individual cultural groups. The issue is very much like the globalization vs. localization controversy. Should one take precedence, or should both coexist? Clearly, consumers of different cultural groups in the United States experience similar influences just by living in a larger common cultural context. However, these consumers still come from different perspectives and worldviews that should impact the way in which they behave in the US marketplace.
In analyzing media exposure, there are more commonalities than differences. The number of hours spent on the different media per week differs little across cultural groups. Most of the relatively small differences seem to be attributable to the language of the medium. In terms of sheer exposure, consumers of these different cultural groups share a lot in common given that their patterns of media consumption are very similar. What is surprising is that Hispanics and Asians do not spend more of their media time with outlets in languages other than English. That may be due to the fact that online consumers are generally younger, more English preferred and sophisticated consumers. It may also be due to the greater availability of content in English than in the language of their families. Further, increasingly there are more offerings that emphasize “in-culture” content than “in-language” programming. The example of the emerging trend represented by SìTV is a case in point. It is a television network directed to Hispanics but it is mostly in English.
Although the differences in sheer exposure to the media are small or non-existent, this does not necessarily mean that the content these different groups of consumers choose is the same. Indeed, it is very likely that there are specific cultural patterns in the content these different consumers choose. However, the exploration of usage by content categories was not in the scope of this study.
New media usage is a much stronger differentiator of cultural groups. The categories of new media included in the study are: cell phone usage, CDs and MP3 exposure and electronic games. The number of hours consumers spend per week is radically different by cultural group. AA and H spend almost twice the amount of time per week on the cell phone than NHW and A. The cultural tendency of African Americans and Hispanics to be connected and their affinity to strong ties may explain these differences. Clearly, this trend has major implications for the development of wireless consumer telephony, and for advertising and marketing over this new medium.
Similarly, it is AA and H who spend much more time listening to CDs per week than their counterparts. The role of music as a cultural expression for each of these groups makes music on demand via CDs an important medium. The use of this medium not only predicts differential equipment and music sales, but also helps explain lifestyle variability across cultural groups in the sense of representing a predilection for the enjoyment of music on opportunities that differentiate the ways in which cultural groups enjoy their lives. Time spent with MP3 players or similar devices is greater for H and A than for NHW and AA. Perhaps the cost of MP3 and similar technologies accounts for some of the differential usage. Also, a preference for listening privacy could explain these differences. MP3 players afford a less visible way of enjoying music because the devices are small and the headphones are unobtrusive. Youth may also account for the differences as A and H are younger in the population studied than NHW and AA.
In contrast to the previous types of new media, playing electronic games does not differentiate these cultural groups. This is surprising because age differences are statistically significant among all of the groups, and electronic games are usually considered to be the preference of younger players. In this population, H are the youngest, followed by A, followed by AA, and finally followed by NHW. This contradicts more commonly held assumptions that electronic games tend to be associated with youth.
In this set of new media questions, an item regarding amount of time spent on outdoor activities was included for lifestyle contrast. H and NHW spend more time on outdoor activities than others, although the differences are not very large. In general, the amount of time spent on outdoor activities appears to be low, in the magnitude of 5 to 6 hours per week. This raises concerns about passivity and a national tendency for weight gain for all of these consumers. Generally, emerging minorities exhibit a stronger proclivity for modern media which makes them important marketing targets for these categories.
Regarding advertising and brand attitudes there are common patterns and striking differences in the way in which these various segments participate in the consumer economy. AA and H are much more positive towards advertising and marketing than A and NHW. This differentiation serves as confirmation that AA and H are less cynical and more interested in commercial messages. For marketers this indicates that communicating with these AA and H consumers via commercial messages is more likely to be well received. However, this is a pattern of thinking that advertising and marketing professionals should not take for granted.
In-culture networking and word-of-mouth about products and commercial messages is much higher for AA than for anyone else. Hispanics are lowest in this attitude scale. What this means is that AA are more likely to spread influence in homogenous AA networks, while H are more likely to get their influence from others outside their network. This is a finding that has important implications for grass roots campaigns and the stimulation of word-of-mouth.
AA are more interested than anyone else in having marketers do good for their communities and they are willing to pay more for that. Hispanics share in this preference for brand orientation to their community as well. Marketers who get involved in helping AA and H communities are likely to gain their favor. In contrast to their community orientation, AA are also higher than any of the other groups on their preference for individually setting up their paths. AA also hold a stronger belief than the other groups that discrimination is still a problem in our society.
A and H are more positive towards sports than AA or NHW. Marketers can capitalize on this tendency by giving their brands better visibility in the context of sports. A are more interested by far in online shopping and in attributing importance to brands in their lives than any other cultural group. This attests to the salience that brands have among A. It is the image and reputation of brands that appear to have a high allure among these consumers.
The tendencies uncovered in this section cast an important doubt on the potential that the multicultural marketplace can be reached by speaking to commonalities. These attitudinal differences point to idiosyncrasies difficult to reconcile in a multicultural campaign.
Brand identification differs across cultural groups. A and AA identify with large technology companies like IBM and MSN. A, H, and NHW identify with large established brands like Walmart, Coca-Cola, and McDonalds. A are more likely to identify with “cool” brands such as Nike, Gap, and Sony than anyone else, followed by H. AA and Hispanics are more likely to identify with portal brands including Google, Yahoo!, and AOL. Again, one can see a tendency for emerging minorities to identify with a variety of brands. It seems that these cultural groups are likely to be the ones fueling the life of brands, both established and new, in the United States. This is a wakeup message for those brands which have not taken the potential of the AA, Hispanic, and Asian emerging markets seriously.
NHW and AA are most likely to have homogeneous friendship networks than anyone else. The most homogeneous networks are those of NHW, and the most heterogeneous networks are those of A. H also have highly heterogeneous networks but less so than Asians. The implication of this pattern is that NHW and AA are more likely to be influenced by people like themselves, while A and H are more likely to be influenced by others. These tendencies should be taken into consideration for the planning of grassroots and other approaches that capitalize on interpersonal diffusion of information.
AA and H were more likely to highly endorse most of the values presented to them than NHW or A with some exceptions. This is likely to be the case because individuals who see themselves as climbing the social ladder need strong anchors for constancy and reassurance. Also, the cultures these individuals come from heavily emphasize the importance of these values. Marketing to AA and H needs to be oriented to the values which these consumers believe are important.
In a similar vein as above, A, AA, and H are more likely to see the media as influencers in their consumer decisions than NHW. The influence of other people, however, is not different across these cultural groups. That has very important implications because popular wisdom has perpetuated the notion that H, for example, are more influenced by word-of-mouth than others. That is not the case. Word of mouth is a common influencer of strong importance that cuts across cultural group differences. This is not in contradiction with the fact that friendship networks can be more or less diverse as stated above.
A and H are most likely to have modern technologies like a blog, an MP3 player, and a digital video camera. The least likely to have these technologies are NHW. The marketing industry should consider new and different avenues for connecting with these A and H consumers who see themselves as innovators. The fact that these users of new technologies come from cultures that differ from what used to be the mainstream of US society, calls for increased knowledge and sensibility for successful marketing strategies.
Interestingly, online activities, such as researching products or services, doing school and job related work, and conducting financial activities are more frequent for almost everyone except for NHW. This confirms a technologically oriented pattern on the part of emerging minorities. As seen in the detailed analysis in this report there are some clear differences among all the groups. The opportunity for SEM (search engine marketing) with members of emerging minorities is likely to be significant.
The pattern of expenditures of many important consumer items was found to vary among the four cultural groups. The differences and similarities are quite detailed. The observed trends justify the conclusion that marketing to specific cultural groups needs to be more targeted and many times more effective than an overall bland approach.
Still, one must keep in mind that there is virtue to the notion of thinking globally and acting locally. Marketers can create a matrix of the different topics explored here by cultural groups and think about how each of the cells in the matrix can be filled similarly or differently according to their tactics and approaches. The overall strategy should be well informed by recognizing where cultural differences do make a difference.