Orient Expressions
The Year of the Serpent has come in like a marketing lion.
Consumer brands are beginning to hone in on the 12 million Americans of Asian descent, whose purchase power reached $254 billion in 2000. Asian-Americans also collect the biggest paychecks of any demographic group in America.
The average median household income for Asian Americans is $51,200, more than $10,000 above the average, according to U.S. Census data. Asian-Americans are also more likely to have a computer, and have the highest level of education of any U.S. group — 60 percent hold at least a bachelor’s degree, according to Forrester Research, Boston.
As for Internet access, Asian-Americans are “way ahead of whites, and light years ahead of Hispanics and African-Americans,” says Saul Gitlin, vp-strategic marketing for Kang & Lee Advertising, New York City. Asians are more likely to be conducting financial business and purchasing products online.
“You can’t ignore these populations,” says Gitlin. “Financial services, brokers, and insurance companies have locked onto them. Everyone is trying to get a piece of the pie.”
But this pie has a lot of flavors. Asian-Americans come from 20 different countries, although most have origins in China, the Philippines, Japan, India, Korea, and Vietnam (see “Reaching Asian-Americans,” pg. 30). The majority were born overseas, and so still have strong ties to the homeland, and many who come here go on to pursue advanced college degrees or take high-tech jobs.
Asians are also more likely to be entrepreneurs, Gitlin says, which explains some of their economic success compared with other ethnic groups. “There’s a certain ethic, with a drive to succeed both professionally and personally, that leads to it,” he says.
The population grew a hefty 49 percent from 1990 to 2000, according to Census information, second only to Hispanics (61 percent) among ethnic persuasions. (The white population, in comparison, grew 5.8 percent in the period.)
California Nesting
Almost half of the Asians living in the U.S. reside in California — about four million live in San Francisco alone. In fact, 13 percent of the California population is Asian. So while Bay Area residents are used to seeing Asians in advertising messages, the rest of the country is not. The marketing world overall is still just testing Oriental waters.
“Companies just don’t seem to have the money to expand into our market,” says Bill Imada, president of Asian-focused agency Imada Wong Communications, Los Angeles. “Most ethnic efforts these days seem to be targeting the faster-growing (and larger) Hispanic audience.”
Plus, the regionalization of the Asian population has kept targeted campaigns confined to the West Coast. “It doesn’t make sense to do them nationally, because there are such concentrations,” says Mike Sherman, general manager at KTSF-TV, an Asian station in San Francisco.
Each year, KTSF funds a study of the Bay Area’s Asian-American population. The last one, completed in August 2000 by Los Angeles-based Interviewing Service of America, randomly selected 500 Chinese households and questioned them about their buying patterns.
The survey found that Asians have very specific brand preferences: McDonald’s is picked over Burger King almost two-to-one, and Coke is the soda of choice. They like Colgate for toothpaste, Tide for detergent, Tylenol for headaches, Pantene Pro-V for shampoo, and Shiseido for cosmetics. They’re heading to Macy’s for clothes, 99 Ranch for groceries, and Bank of America for deposits.
Targeted campaigns always pick up around the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls in January or February.
Mazola Corn Oil, a brand of Englewood Cliffs, NJ-based Unilever Bestfoods, has focused most of its ethnic marketing initiatives on Hispanics for the past 25 years, but this year ran a pilot program in Los Angeles for its first Asian campaign. “We’ve been toying with the idea, and [had] discovered an opportunity in the Asian community, but never had support from senior management,” says Mazola senior product manager John Rivera.
Mazola’s goal was to strengthen its status as a premium brand within Asian households. The brand ran print advertisements featuring large photos of the packaging and copy in Chinese. An in-store sweepstakes which ran from January through March gave away high-end appliances such as refrigerators. A trade overlay dangled Asian-themed calendars to retailers and related trade associations. “Asians tend to use oil in almost every eating occasion, and we were trying to leverage what is already an affinity for Mazola in their home countries,” says Rivera.
Basking Ridge, NJ-based AT&T has run Asian-targeted promotions for several years that typically involve special rate plans for calls made to Asia during holiday seasons. Campaigns have run during Holi, an Indian festival in March; the Mid-Autumn Festival, a Chinese celebration in September; the Chinese Lunar New Year; and Vietnam’s Tet Festival in early winter.
“The reality is that this society is becoming more diverse,” says Maria Albarracin, international consumer marketing director for AT&T. “We find that when you understand their cultural differences, they show appreciation.”
AT&T is currently running an offer for discount calls as low as 14 cents per minute any time of day to Hong Kong, India, or Japan. Imada Wong handles.
Flying High
Dallas-based Southwest Airlines has been a sponsor of the Chinese New Year parade in San Francisco for about 10 years. But the airline got really serious about marketing to ethnic groups in 1996, when it formed an ethnic marketing division. After first successfully targeting African-Americans and Hispanics, Southwest began looking at the Northern California Asian community, says regional manager of integrated marketing Mindy Rabinowitz. Step one was to become title sponsor of the parade.
In February, Southwest teamed with KTSF-TV and Wells Fargo Bank to activate its sponsorship. During the station’s Feb. 3 parade broadcast, viewers were encouraged to count the number of floats with a snake theme (it is the Year of the Serpent, after all) and mail in their tallies for a chance to win a trip for four to Las Vegas. Entry forms were available in 52 Wells Fargo branches at Oriental foods grocery chain 99 Ranch, owned by Tawa Supermarkets, Buena Park, CA.
Rabinowitz says the key to Southwest’s marketing strategy is to appeal to “passion points. In order to talk to consumer groups in an effective way, you need to be talking to them in a culturally relevant way,” she says.
Southwest ran a similar sweeps in Los Angeles in conjunction with Asian TV station KSCI. There, viewers counted the number of on-screen appearances made by the “God of Fortune,” a mythical character considered to be a symbol of good luck, during a popular show called Tea Time. One of the first 10 viewers to call in with the correct total won the trip. On-air spots supported. Southwest handled both efforts in-house.
Several California banks including Seattle-based Washington Mutual and San Francisco-based Bank of America have established a tradition of passing out red Lycee envelopes to customers around the Chinese New Year. In Asian culture, it’s customary for young, unmarried people or newlyweds to receive red (the color of luck) envelopes containing money from their elders as holiday gifts. While the banks aren’t stuffing the envelopes with free money, the gesture is culturally relevant. “They’ve come to expect it,” says Washington Mutual vp-ethnic marketing David Bland. “The average household deposits among Asian-Americans tends to be higher than the average customer, so it can be lucrative to have Asians as customers.”
Hennessy, a brand of New York-based Schiefflin & Somerset Co., gave its X.O. cognac brand celebrity status last October by making it the sole sponsor of a VIP reception held before the first-annual Ammy Awards, an Asian-American Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. P-O-P materials adorned the bar and podium at the ceremony, and waiters offered free drinks.
“The reality is that this society is becoming more diverse. We find that when you understand their cultural differences, they show appreciation.”
— Maria Albarracin, AT&T
In February, Hennessy polled 100 Asian-Americans in the entertainment industry to create a list of “The Eight Coolest Asian-American Celebrities,” because the number eight is associated with prosperity and good fortune. The winners, who included actor Jackie Chan and actress Lucy Liu, received special-edition gift boxes with cognac, glasses, and a leather box of French chocolate. Imada Wong handled both efforts.
Sears, Roebuck & Co, Hoffman Estates, IL, has been giving Asians in California special attention since 1995, and often runs sales promotions, premium giveaways, and gift-with-purchase offers around the Mid-Autumn Festival, one of the most celebrated holidays among both Chinese and Vietnamese. Kang & Lee handles.
“Our goal is to provide culturally relevant premiums, generate store traffic, and enhance our local stores’ image by demonstrating Sears’ involvement in a major Asian cultural event,” says spokesperson Rebecca Sullivan Hary.
The Asian culture is getting more relevant all the time.
