Women’s History Month

South Hackensack, NJ
March 21st, 2011
E-Tech Women's History Month Newsletter
by Candace Kennedy candace@ethnictechnologies.com

E-Tech Celebrates Women’s History Month

As we look back on past decades, it is clear that a marketing revolution is taking place. Marketing to women has evolved from the homogenized versions of advertising in the 1950’s, to today’s multichannel, culturally competent approach. If we look at a timeline of “stereotypes” we get a clear picture of that changing landscape.

Moving into the next decades, the 1960’s and 70’s saw an important change in thinking about a woman’s role in family and society. It was the beginning of the feminist movement, with women like Gloria Steinem in the forefront. While still at home and in most of America, traditional values prevailed, we were just starting to see and feel that women could not only be in the corporate world, but could also be independent and strong minded.

As we move into the 1980’s and 90’s the idea of the “Superwoman” or “Supermom” appeared at least on the surface to be fully fleshed out. This was the era of movies like Working Girl and Mr. Mom, portraying women as being able to do it all. However, there was still an underlying theme of these women being frazzled, running themselves too ragged, and perhaps having a less than competent partner in life to help her navigate through.

Fast forward to the 2000’s and beyond. Marketing to women in the current day takes the best of all those previous ideas and combines them with cultural competency and recognition of non-traditional family structures. Most importantly, instead of asking “Why market to women?” we need to ask “How can we most effectively influence this important demographic?”

Some important statistics to take away from this discussion:

· 60% of current Internet Users are women
· Women use the internet to do everything: manage and maintain their household, pay bills, do research and socially network.
· 25 million women regularly share advice, knowledge, ideas and opinions via blogs and social networking
· Women are the primary decision makers, or “Chief Purchasing Officers” in most households
· 50% of all do-it-yourself purchases are made by women
· 89% of all household bank accounts are managed by women
· 80% of all healthcare decisions and purchases are done by women

Today’s woman is still evolving, as all the women of past decades were quietly doing as well. In marketing to women today, it is essential to look beyond the “icon” of the decade, and to gain a deeper understanding of how trends will affect the social and socioeconomic status of females in our society. Our landscape is changing, and so brands must adapt to that change in order to stay relevant to this most important consumer.

Below are links to two of our Female Datacards: Female Business Owners by State and Female Heads of Households by State.

http://ethnictechnologies.com/datacards/HHdatacard_236.html
http://ethnictechnologies.com/datacards/HHdatacard_204.html

Ethnic Technologies Female Insight

Women's History Month's roots go back to March 8, 1857, when women from New York City factories staged a protest over poor working conditions. In 1981 Congress established National Women's History Week to be commemorated the second week of March. In 1987, Congress expanded the week to a full month. In 2010 the estimated female population in the U.S. reached 156.4 million in comparison, the number of males was 152.1 million. An estimated 82.8 million of these women are mothers. There are roughly 9.2 million women-owned businesses in the U.S. Women-owned businesses contributed nearly $3.6 trillion to the U.S. economy over the past year. Approximately 8 percent of our nation's labor force works for a business owned by a woman. It is estimated that one third of new jobs by the year 2018 with be created by women-owned businesses. Ethnic Technologies can help your marketing efforts to this fast growing segment. The Ethnicenter Business Owner file has been enhanced with G-Tech 3.1, comprehensive gender identification software. The tables used in G-Tech 3.1 contain the correct female gender identification for over 164,330 first names including those from all the ethnicities covered by E-Tech 7.3.

Contact Candace M. Kennedy, Sales and Marketing Director at 866-333-8324 ext. 106 or candace@ethnictechnologies.com. Visit www.ethnictechnologies.com.

Black History Month 2011

South Hackensack, NJ
January 21, 2011
E-Tech Black History Month Newsletter

New Achievements in Black History

With the celebration of Martin Luther King’s 82nd birthday on Monday January 17th and the coming to the end of the second year of office for our first black president E-Tech would like to honor all those who contributed to African American History achievements. The 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States marked a defining moment in both American and World history. This historic event was another step toward Martin Luther King’s dream of a more equitable society. Throughout Black History Month we remember how Black American leaders of all kinds helped to bring our Nation together.

A History of Black History
In February, the nation joins Black Americans in celebrating their rich culture, heritage, and contributions to the American lifestyle during Black History Month. Black History Month began as “Negro History Week” in 1926 which was established by Carter G. Woodson and was expanded to a month long celebration in 1976. Woodson is said to have chosen the second week in February for the celebration to honor the birthdays of Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist and editor, and Abraham Lincoln.

The scope to which Blacks have contributed to American life can be witnessed at even the most fundamental levels: Garrett Morgan invented the first Traffic Signal (1923); Lewis Latimer invented the Carbon Filament used in Light Bulbs (1882); Richard Spikes invented the Automatic Gear Shift (1932) and Lydia O. Newman invented the Hair Brush (1898). Today, Black Americans are still achieving firsts in politics, education and business: Condoleezza Rice was the first Black Woman to serve as US Secretary of State; President Barack Obama was the first Black President of the Harvard Law Review and was the first Black to run for the Democratic Party's Presidential Candidacy; and Robert Johnson, owner of Black Entertainment Television, became the first Black Billionaire in 2001.

The Black Consumer Market
There are 40 million black Americans and comprise 12.3 percent of the U.S. population down from 14.8 percent of the population in 2000. African Americans became the nation’s second-largest minority group in the first decade of the 21st century.

The Black population is younger than the rest of the U.S population. In 2010 the median age of the Black population was 41 compared to the general U.S. population at nearly 45. In addition, females represent a greater percentage of the Black population in the United States. While the Black American median household income is lower than the U.S. average, the percentage of Black American households with an income of $50,000.00 or more grew 13.5% between 2003 and 2010, compared with 8.4% for the total U.S. households.

According to the University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth, the buying power of Black Americans was $895 Billion in 2010 and estimates the buying power in 2012 to reach $1.1 trillion. In that same year, the US Census Bureau estimated the number of Black residents at 40.7 million, comprising 13.5% of the total US population. The number of Black-owned businesses was 1.8 million in 2009, a 58% increase since 1997 and Black businesses generated revenues of $92.7 Billion that year. Black Americans are also gaining ground in education. In 2009, 18% of Black Americans held Bachelor Degrees and 1.7 million held advanced degrees (Master’s, J.D., M.D. PhD).

As this group becomes more educated and their median household income increases, they will have greater control of the consumer marketplace. Black Americans are attracted to companies that represent their lifestyle with targeted messages and images. It is the responsibility of marketers to attract and maintain a relationship with the Black consumer.

“Black folk are not just dark-skinned white people. Marketers who consciously establish a relationship with this lucrative yet underserved market, by better understanding the African-American culture, mindset, attitude, behavior and lifestyle, will reap significant long-term rewards from a loyal, influential, increasingly affluent customer base.”
-Herbert Kemp, Founder & CEO of What is Black about IT? LLC

TIDBITS

LOCATION
More than half of black Americans live in the South.

New York had the largest black population of any state as of July 1, 2010 (3.6 million); Georgia had the largest numeric increase since July 1, 2007 (67,500). The District of Columbia had the highest percentage of blacks (56 percent), followed by Mississippi (38 percent).

Cook County, III. (Chicago’s county) had the largest black population of any county (1.4 million), and Orleans Parish, La. (New Orleans’ county) had the largest numeric increase since July 1, 2007 (16,000). Claiborne County, Miss.—on the Louisiana border—had the highest percentage of blacks in the nation (84 percent).

Seventy-seven counties were majority-black or African-American; all were in the South.

More than half of black American (53 percent) rent their homes—that’s the largest percentage of renters among the races in the U.S.

GENDER
There are more women than men.

Households: Nearly one out of every three black households (29 percent) are headed by a single woman, the highest percentage of female-headed households in the U.S.

MARRIAGE
Nearly half have never married, the highest percentage for all racial groups. Only 30 percent of blacks are now married.

MONEY
The annual median income of black households in 2009 was is $34,218, a decline of 2.8 percent (in 2009 constant dollars) from 2008. It’s the lowest in the United States.

Black median family income was just over $41,000 in 2009, the lowest in the United States of any racial group. A single black woman with children earned a median annual income of $25,958.

No surprise then that one out of five black families lives in poverty. More than 40 percent of black families headed by a single mom are poor.

IMMIGRANTS
Only 3 million African Americans are immigrants. Of that number, nearly two-thirds were born in Latin America, the other one-third of the immigrants were born in Africa.

Only 7 percent of us speak a language other than English.

MILITARY
Number of black military veterans in the United States in 2009: 2.3 million. More military veterans are black than any other minority group

Census: U.S Population grows by 9.7 per cent.

Census: U.S Population grows by 9.7 per cent.

Dec. 22, 2010

The resident population represented an increase of 9.7 percent over the 2000 U.S. resident population of 281,421,906. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Acting Commerce Deputy Secretary Rebecca Blank and Census Bureau Director Robert Groves unveiled the official counts at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. resident population represents the total number of people in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The most populous state was California (37,253,956); the least populous, Wyoming (563,626). The state that gained the most numerically since the 2000 Census was Texas (up 4,293,741 to 25,145,561) and the state that gained the most as a percentage of its 2000 Census count was Nevada (up 35.1% to 2,700,551).

Regionally, the South and the West picked up the bulk of the population increase, 14,318,924 and 8,747,621, respectively. But the Northeast and the Midwest also grew: 1,722,862 and 2,534,225.

States where Hispanics have settled in large numbers saw some of the highest percent changes in population growth and gained congressional seats, according to the first set of Census 2010 results.

Many states in the South and West that have been magnets for Latinos saw double-digit percentage growths. The growth in those areas far outpaced the nation’s, which saw a population increase of 9.7 percent over the 2000 Census count of 281 million residents.

This first release of Census results did not include data on race or ethnicity -- reports with those details will be released early next year. But many demographic experts have been expecting the 2010 Census to show that some of the largest growth in population would occur in states that are home to Hispanics, who have a higher birthrate than most other groups and include millions of immigrants.

Additionally, Puerto Rico's resident population was 3,725,789, a 2.2 percent decrease over the number counted a decade earlier.

"The results from the U.S. Census confirm that the states with a heavy Hispanic population are the 'winners' in terms of the number of house seats gained," said Joe Kutchera, an expert on demographic trends and author of "Latino Link: Building Brands Online with Hispanic Communities and Content." "The growth in the U.S. is centered in the South and Southwest, regions that are heavily Hispanic."

Beginning in February and wrapping up by March 31, 2011, the Census Bureau will release demographic data to the states on a rolling basis so state governments can start the redistricting process.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Fox News