24 Nov Do You Have to be Minority to Market to Minorities?

As I read through  an article on Minority and Multicultural marketing, I was amazed at several stated statistics:

• In 2009, the U.S. African-American market’s buying power was $910 billion, while the Hispanic-American market’s was $978 billion.  That combined buying power is larger than Brazil’s entire economy was in 2009.
• Lisa Skriloff, president of Multicultural Marketing Resources Inc., estimates that there are anywhere between 350 and 500 agencies devoted to doing multicultural marketing, including Hispanic, African-American and Asian marketing.

So a friend and I were hypothesizing on whether or not someone had to be minority in order to understand how to market to this demographic.

Our side of of the debate was that you did NOT have to be African American, Asian, or Hispanic in order to properly reach this demographic.  Afterall, if marketers know their demographic they are Golden!

On the flip side, we did identify that there are some sensitivities of which non-minority marketeters should be aware.  For instance, there are probably, just as in all races, sensitive issues, names, and problems, that should not be used in Marketing.  But how does one draw the line?

We summarized that the line should be drawn through consultation of a certain demographic for content appropriateness.  Many marketing firms will do preliminary testing campaigns to do just this.

Testing surpasses race.  It could apply to religion, socioeconomic status, employment type, and more.

In conclusion, can you think of any examples in which you would have to be extraordinarily sensitive to the needs of a demographic… and if so, how would you go about testing the appropriateness of your content?