Saturday 4 February 2012

How far can assumptions of ethnic markets take you?

After going through online articles, in search for something I could write about this week, I came across one in the Globe and Mail titled, “In de-coding class in China, cars are your best clue”.

The article states it all started on Weibo, China`s very popular version of Twitter let`s just say. On that social network was a discussion about the type of car a Canada ambassador owns versus the type of car that a Beijing vice-minister owns. From there, stemmed a list of cars which would define one`s social class in Beijing. Basically, the article talks about the type of car one has can determine the social class you are (assumed to be) in.

As I went through the list of cars and its perceived social class… it provoked some thoughts about the idea of “assuming” in marketing today.

Some businesses will refrain from investing into an authentic ethnic marketing company and simply just rely on their own “assumptions” about ethnic markets. Assumptions can only go so far though. For example (real life example!), a business would just throw an ad into the Sing Tao Chinese newspaper and that’s it, marketing to the Chinese community (check!). They just assumed that their target market will read the newspaper, see that article, and are now ready to go make a purchase. A few questions arise from this… is it even the right channel to use? Where is the strategy behind it?

Now is there any other approach to ethnic marketing besides the newspaper ad? No, and this is another problem. If businesses even make an attempt at ethnic marketing, there’s always a cap on it as if it’s not important, not a big deal. In other words, investment in ethnic marketing is very low; however, how can a business really benefit if they don’t put in the full efforts? How does their “knowledge” of the ethnic market compare with the knowledge of an ethnic marketing company? The least they can do is consult with an expert right? A cultural expert that is.

Check out the article here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/worldview/in-de-coding-class-in-china-cars-are-your-best-clue/article2319674/

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