2010 & the Importance of Culturally Relevant Marketing

by Karen Sinisi karens@ethnictechnologies.com

The Census is coming! The Census is coming! I am sure I speak for all those involved in ethnic marketing when I say that we can’t wait to see what changes lie ahead. Of course we already know about many of the interesting nuances that this new census will bring, after all we are in the trenches. We are on the forefront of multicultural marketing intelligence, so can the 2010 Census really tell us something we don’t know? Time will tell.

But what about the more subtle change in our great nation? We have an African American President now. This was a day that I did not know if I would live to see, but sure enough, here it is. I am a Caucasian woman, but I could literally feel the pride in which every African American in our country must have been experiencing on Election Day. Minorities of all sorts are making tremendous impact and contributions to politics, sports, entertainment and business. And the populations are booming, with Hispanics on the precipice of becoming the majority. So does this mean that culturally sensitive marketing and advertising is becoming less necessary as we move towards 2010?

I would argue that it is more necessary than ever to create and perpetuate strong messages geared specifically towards ethnic groups. Here are a few examples of springboards for the creation of some terrific culturally competent advertising: The sense of pride and fellowship that African Americans have with the election of Barack Obama . The incredible breakthrough of Sonia Sotomayor as our first Latino Supreme Court Justice. Y.E. Yang, the first Asian pro golfer to ever win a major tournament. There are so many more examples, but my feeling is that as the multicultural populations grow, so too must the specific advertising messages that we as marketers create. We cannot move towards a more vanilla, general market sensibility, but must strive to always keep culturally relevant.