Pew Internet reports that Seniors are less likely to go online

The Pew Internet and Life Project has reported that:

As of December 2009, 38% of U.S. adults age 65 and older go online, a significantly lower rate of internet adoption than the general population (74%) and even the next-oldest group (70% of adults age 50-64 years old go online).

In addition, just 26% of U.S. adults age 65 and older have home broadband access, compared with 56% of adults age 50-64 years old (and 60% of all adults).

Older internet users are also likely to stay in the shallow end of the internet activities pool: email and search. A few pioneers have jumped into the social media deep end, but these seniors are the exception, not the rule.

Because our organization delves into the cultural factors of consumer behavior, I found this information fascinating, and a beginning point for many other questions.

For anyone pondering multicultural, or ethnic marketing, you may also want to consider our thoughts and questions that were a result of this report.

1). For both groups, what percentage of each group is comprised of Asian Americans, Latinos, African Americans and First Nation persons? During the turn of the New Millennium, when Internet adoption was around 48-49% for most White Americans, Asian Americans overall showed an extremely high Internet adoption rate of 78-79%.

It would be interesting to see if the Asian American component is nearly fully saturated at all age range cohorts, including these two older aged groupings.

It would also be interesting to see the numbers for Latinos, especially those who are immigrants because Internet usage makes communications to family and friends from their homelands easier and less expensive.

2). Of all groups in the 65 year range and older, what percentage of those who have Internet adoption living alone or with a spouse, versus living with extended family (children, grandchildren) where Internet adoption would be higher. This question is particularly pertinent for US ethnic subcultures here who have a high group orientation versus a low group orientation.

The Pew Internet and Life Project has many fascinating studies available for download. If you are a webhead or love online consumer behavior, this is an excellent place to educate yourself about current and past trends.

The decline of the paper greeting card?

This morning there was an announcement that American Greetings Corporation posted better than expected earnings.  From the Wall Street Journal:  "American Greetings  Corp. posted better-than-expected earnings amid higher sales. The greeting-card company returned to the black in its fiscal third quarter as last year's results were hurt by write-downs and restructuring charges." 

What struck me was the radio reporter's assessment that greeting cards are experiencing a demise because online e-cards have replaced them. While there certainly has been cannibalization of the paper card by online e-cards, to some extent this is also being done by the card companies themselves.  Go to the American Greetings corporate site and you'll see that they offer a free line of e-cards.  Other independent e-card companies such as Jacquie Lawson charge a subscription fee for her uniquely stylized cards that feature darling animals.  Previously more unusual, her cards have grown in popularity.  Whereas I used to receive them from one person only, now I regularly receive them from several people.  Does this indicate a decline of the paper greeting card?  

Just as any target marketing demographic, this must be segmented.  However, typical orientations such as age, education, and adeptness with the Internet, etc. apply, so should the all very important assessment of consumer behavior and lifestyle.  On the face of it, one could agree with the radio reporter who attributed the decline of the paper greeting card to "young people who seem to be the largest group of e-card senders,"  one needs to take a closer look at the total market of who sends cards and why.

First, look at the American Greetings website:  

"The company's major greeting card brands are American Greetings, Carlton Cards, Gibson, Recycled Paper Greetings, and Papyrus, and other paper product offerings include DesignWare party goods, American Greetings and Plus Mark gift-wrap and boxed cards and Date Works calendars."

Each of the three card brands are known for their specific type of psychographical appeal and to some degree, socio-economic appeal.  Papryus, which offers stand alone stores, and which was sold on April 17th, is a high end card retailer with increasing popularity amongst the fashionable and artistic consumers who enjoy purchasing cards that are little pieces of art.  This has also spurred the growth of many independently owned card stores that also sell high end, artsy cards.  For example, Hazel in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood often features local artists as well as their work.  So at least as far as the high end market goes, there seems to be an increase in purchases of the paper greeting card, not a decline.

There is another slowly moving phenomena which seems to be occurring, which includes the increasing rejection of e-cards as the primary form of card communications.  Within middle income and higher demographics, many people who send these cards do so in addition to the paper card.  This is not an unusual set of circumstances, as there are many online shoppers who prefer to view products from a hardcover catalog and then make their purchases online.  

So while online card sending may be growing, this does not necessarily spell a death knell for those who make and sell hard copy greeting cards.   In today's environment, the customer experience still rules the court, and with the exception of highly niche online card companies, there is no finer experience than receiving a handwritten card which you can save, display, or in some cases, even frame, all of which also say, "I care enough to take the time to do this."  

Multicultural Marketing, Food and Language

Very often, actually too often, I receive requests from organizations that want to market to Asian Americans and assume that they need to 1) reach them in languages other than English and 2). reach them by catering to specific tastes in products.

The first key to any type of multicultural marketing is no different from general marketing. It's all about segmentation. Know who you are trying to reach. Are you looking for a more affluent segment, college educated, and/or who have higher incomes? Most often, although not always, you will be looking at native born Americans. This is consistent whether you are targeting Americans of Asian descent or Americans of Latino descent. It is consistent with the immigrant process of virtually all general market groups. So why do people insist on reaching people in a non-English language?

Often this is because of the assumption that a visible minority is a foreigner. This is a common stereotype, perpetrated by the Perpetual Foreigner Syndrome for Asian Americans. It also applies to Latinos, as many, like Asian Americans, have been here for multiple generations and often they cannot speak a language outside of English. Asian Americans know this. Latinos know this. Unfortunately, often times businesses and marketers don't, or they perpetrate it if the marketing agency is owned by someone whose primary language is not English.

If you are a business that is serious about reaching multicultural markets, you first need to ask yourself what segment are you trying to reach? Are you looking for immigrant minorities or are you looking for acculturated visible minorities? Are your products appropriately labeled for the former and the latter? Research has shown that often, for example, trying to reach Asian Americans by sending them materials in a language other than English can be offensive, and sends the message that you don't believe they understand English, or worse yet, that they are foreigners when they are native born or even 4th or 5th generation Americans. Because there are historical issues with these assumptions that are very negative, reaching the wrong segment with the wrong language even if it is well meaning can end up back-firing.

There are also organizations who believe that they must reach multicultural markets by catering to specific tastes in their preferences due to their ethnic background. This is a more laudable, and lofty endeavor because we are talking about major sub-segmentation here. For example, Asian Americans and Latinos are not one monolithic group with a monolithic tendency toward buying certain products or services consistency across the group. That being said, within each group there may be consumer product, food or service preferences based on lifestyle.

That brings us back to lifestyle marketing again, only now we're looking at the added twist of cultural preferences, avoiding stereotypes, and doing this all in a culturally appropriate manner for each sub-segment of the group. For example, within the Asian American segment, at one time, tofu consumed by Americans of Japanese ancestry is the tofu eaten by almost everyone else at natural food stores, and had its roots in Japanese tofu styles. During this time, Korean American tofu was similarly if not the same, but Chinese dofu was substantially different.

Similarly, since I'm on the food theme as it is near dinner time, coffees that are popular in Mexico may not be in Cuba, and visa versa. Latin America is a huge continent, and assuming that everyone eats tortillas would not be a good assumption, or that all foods in Latin America are spicy (they are not). Even more confusing is that fact that you can get an almost Japanese style food item quite easily in Peru, for example, since they have a sizable Asian Peruvian population.

If you are really unsure, especially if you are selling food, once you know who your demographic market is, hire the appropriate marketing strategy firm, one that can do research for your target market. Often this involves consumer behavior observationals or focus groups. The results will be much more rewarding than a hit or miss approach.

Just throw in a pinata and put some "oriental" music on

There was a time when cultural marketing meant diving head first into a stereotype or something "familiar," tossing it into the mix and considering it ethnic marketing. We've all seen these depictions, even in films, where they wanted to represent an exotic concept so the shamisen music suddenly comes on, only in a scene depicting a Chinatown. Even worse are businesses who still insist on using the term Oriental to reach Asian Americans, when most Asian Americans consider the term appropriate for objects like rugs and vases, but not people.

At least nowadays, there are more professional services firms that actually have a solid grasp of the subcultural groups they develop marketing plans for. If you are trying to reach a multicultural market but you do not have the budget to hire a professional firm to develop the entire plan, at least consider hiring them for consulting services. In this way, you can pitch a concept and have a more anthropologically appropriate evaluation before you go to market. We once saw an organization attempt to reach the Hispanic market on their own, and their solution to being culturally adept was to toss in a pinata.

Enter the Pinata, the ever present symbol of los Mexicanos. For some, the pinata has become the symbol of all Hispanic marketing, in the same way that our American Flag stands for all of being a U.S. American. The only problem is the flag is a 24/7 concept, whereas pinatas, while used in other Central American countries, are primarily a Mexican and Mexican American cultural phenomena and they are used for special occasions, so hanging a pinata in your advertising with no context will draw more amusement than a cultural connection.

Cultural marketing is no different than any other practice of market segmentation. Know your demographic, your segments, your subsegments and what drives them to make buying decisions before you throw in the pinata and put that shamisen music on.

Television, Advertising and Multicultural Marketing

On the face of it, television dramas are part of our popular culture, In 1942 there were perhaps 5,000 television sets nationwide. By 2006, USA Today reported that the average home has more television sets than people. We are a culture that watches a lot of television, which means that how people and situations are portrayed does influence the perceptions of both the general market and the total market.

There are certain subcultures of our population, who in general, tend to cluster in urban, metropolitan locations: Asian Americans, Latinos, and First Nation people. For these population segments, how the media, especially dramas, portray them can go a long way to promoting acceptance or stereotypes by the large populations of people who do not live in major metropolitan areas and or who do not normally have contact on a personal basis with anyone in these groups.

There are obviously more visible minorities, and it is easier to see more African Americans and Latinos playing positive and recurring regular roles during prime time dramas. So what is going on with First Nation and Asian American actors and entertainers? If you are wondering if there are even any Native American actors, than sadly this is testament that the major network program's dearth of this population is being ignored by writers and those who do the casting. One does not need to be in a stereotypical role in order to cast a visible minority, unless it is specifically a piece involving those minorities. Even the popular Adam Beach is gets little air play. In most cases, anyone could easily be cast to play a lawyer, doctor, or police officer on television.

And then there are the Asian Americans, who have been here easily 4-5 generations yet they still hear the inevitable, "Where were you born?" and "You speak such good English." Until the last several years or so, many television dramas required Asian American actors to speak with a fake accent, despite the fact that English is their first language, and in most cases their only language. This is akin to blackface. Can you imagine watching 24 with major African American characters missing, but instead seeing people in blackface? It would erode the credibility of the drama. I was appalled when a new television drama, supposedly set in Los Angeles, had no regular Asian American actors on the program. Even worse, they portrayed an Asian immigrant man who was "married to an American," and the "American" was a Caucasian person. There are plenty of non-Caucasian Americans, and given this relatively new drama's lack of demographic awareness, this is not surprising.

Contrast this to programs like CSI, Numb3rs, The Mentalist, and Grey's Anatomy, who have Asian American regulars and in some cases, Asian Americans portrayed in positions of power (versus subservience which had been the television stereotype norm in the 1980's and 1990's). Now if you are a business selling consumer goods and you advertise, why should you care?

The most obvious reason is that by 2009, we should as a culture be more aware and more conscious and more responsible. We should know that pigeon holing and stereotyping Americans who are visible minorities is a dinosaur mentality way of thinking. If you need a monetary incentive, think of your customer base. Latinos, Asian Americans, African Americas and First Nation people tend to have a larger younger population and less of an older population. This translates to more disposable income per group. According to Census 2000, Asian Americans have the highest income levels and educational levels, and have long been known to be early adopters of technology. In 2001 the level of Internet usage by Asian Americans was substantially higher than that of the general population. By 2050, population trends indicate that as a whole, the U.S.A. will be comprised 50% by visible minorities. We are looking at growing segments of non-immigrant, acculturated diversity as well as immigrant populations.

This leaves the question about advertising efforts. If you are a company that advertises, do your advertisements include people of color, sending the message that you have a wide target market of clients or consumers, or does everyone in your commercials look like they stepped out of an exclusive, private country club from the 1940's? Good advertising helps the viewer say, "That's me!" if the product or service is ready to solve a problem or fill a need. Good advertising also says that "me" is inclusive.

I am a fan of Mad Men. The series is incredibly well written and cast, and has touched upon many social issues and moires of the early 1960's. It is impossible not to notice the absence of any person of color in a position of power. With Mad Men, the absence of minorities in any position of power, and the lack of minority diversity is consistent with the period of time depicted. Yet, this drama is written with today's awareness, and is an education for anyone who was not alive during this time, or not old enough to work in the business world that the U.S. business world has seen quantum leaps and bounds in many areas.

Many of the actions depicted during the series, if they occurred in today's business environment, would land a plethora of lawsuits. Many a woman viewer can greatly appreciate the challenges and hurdles that older women who entered the business world have had to endure. A common comment that I hear from friends is that "I had no idea what my mother/grandmother had to go through." So it is that our awareness and consciousness should not be locked into the 1960's. Neither should your advertising.

During an extensive pan-ethnic marketing research project, we found that most visible minorities do pay attention to advertisements with minorities in them. Multicultural marketing is just good business sense, but if you are going to do it, do it right.

Size Does Matter

I was in a meeting with a new client, who needed SEO help. SEO, for anyone who is unfamiliar with the term, stands for Search Engine Optimization. Essentially this is the largely behind the scenes work that helps a website gain traction on the search engines. When a person enters search terms, hopefully it is your business website that comes up on top, not your competitor's.

We were reviewing the work done by the previous firm. I will not name the company, but I will say that it is a national company that is very large and they also outsource their help outside of the U.S.

One of the things that happens when a business hires a very large marketing communications or public relations firm is that, like in a boutique firm, they will be assigned a Client Services Director or Manager. This person meets with the top level management or the owners of the client firm, and essentially interviews them to ascertain how their organization can help them. Unfortunately, that is usually where the similarities end.

With very large marketing service firms, the actual work to be done is delegated down the organizational chain. This means that very often, the person actually doing the work can be two, even three levels below and removed from the person that you, the client company, had spoken with in detail. Remember the childhood game "telephone" where you pass on a message and the last person repeats what they think they heard? This may be okay for a game, but not so when we are looking at what should be effective marketing communications or business public relations strategy and implementation.

The new client owner showed me all the things that they were told to do. At one time these tactics made sense. In the Search Engine world, things change. Algorithms have changed. The tactics this firm employed stopped being effective at least five years ago, but the client was given the run around, and told to change "this and that" as the explanation as to why their rankings were sub par.

There was no initial site analysis done for them, no back office evaluation, no assessment of what directories they were already on and if these were search engine friendly or not. In fact, a major directory that is de rigeur by any SEO professional wasn't even one they were listed on, and this client has had a website for many, many years. In terms of service level, what was apparent was that this large company, which isn't even a marketing firm, decided to branch into SEO work so as to not lose any potential business. They then outsourced their SEO operation overseas, but the client's business was uniquely specific to niche marketing, which was not something that the outsourced staff was familiar with or had any knowledge of how to do.

The final coup de grace was when the outsourced staff told the client to replace certain words and gave them several paragraphs to put on their website. The content was unintelligible, the result of it being written by non-native English Speakers who also had no understanding of cultural context.

So sometimes bigger just is not better. Sometimes you can get lost in the organization with no one really accountable for the quality of work that you are paying for. This isn't to say that your company cannot get good service with a large firm. However, if you are a small business (500 employees or less), it may make more sense to hire a boutique agency. In our case, our clients consider us to be an extension of their company, their outside marketing organization. Service issues with certain types of large marketing firms and the need for highly personalized professional services has given rise to the popularity of boutique agencies.

What is cultural marketing?

Broadly defined, cultural marketing is marketing to a person, groups of people, businesses, or other audience by appealing and connecting with them in a way that they can identify with for themselves.

Cultural marketing is all about consumer behavior, understanding why people make the buying decisions that they do, and don't.

Cultural marketing is also about subcultures, or nuances held in common by groups of people. It is commonly a term attributed to minority subcultures here: Asian Americans, Hispanics, Latinos, Native Americans and African Americans. However, that is not the only scope of cultural marketing.

Webheads have a culture, which is further broken down, or segmented into areas of interest. These can include webmasters, news junkies, online researchers, social networking aficionados, gizmo fanatics, electronics buffs, and so on.

In our world, essentially everything is about culture. Everyone is a part of a culture. Many people are a part of a sub-culture.

Cultural marketing is about niche marketing, reaching various segments of the population in ways that resonate with the audience they are trying to reach. In essence, politicians do cultural marketing to reach constituents and potential voters.

We hope to share a variety of stories, experiences and insights on this all encompassing area we call cultural marketing. Sometimes we'll be talking about clients, past and present, and how they solved problems with or without our help. Other times we may be writing about an issue of interest relating to marketing, business, and aspects of our popular or sub cultures. We hope this blog venture will be fun for all of us!