9-11: Asian Pacific America Recounts a Year of Struggle and Healing (Feature) Who’s Getting the Message? (in National News) Putting Our Health Center Stage (in Bay Area News) Ultimate Diversions: Kingdom Hearts (in Business) Chinese American Volleyball Tournament Comes to San Francisco (in Sports) Collateral Damage: ‘Asian Americans On War & Peace’ (in A&E) Emil Amok: Chicken-hearted Patriotism in Fremont (in Opinion)

Greg Chew won this summer’s first annual Rainbow Award for multicultural marketing from the Newspaper Association of America. Photo by Julie D. Soo.

Who’s Getting the Message?

Ethnic advertising finally recognized

By Julie D. Soo
Special to AsianWeek

Greg Chew chuckles when he pulls out a store display photo showing shelves of soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, coconut juice, chili paste, fermented black beans and 50-pound sacks of rice alongside more mainstream condiments like ketchup, mustard and Worcestershire sauce. But what is really now the mainstay for San Francisco and beyond? Asian Pacific Americans make up over one-third of the city and about 12 percent of California according to Census 2000. Demographers predict that the APA and Latino populations will continue to experience the largest population growth in years to come. Smart businesses, according to Chew, will learn that they need to market to ethnic communities and meet different product demands.

Chickens Packaged with Feet and Head

The glossies that Chew flips through aren’t from a small independent Asian markets in an ethnic enclave, but from the Albertsons chain. Chew — who co-founded Dae Advertising in 1990 after a decade with big “traditional” advertising firms, Foote, Cone & Belding — says that Albertsons has embraced “localization,” marketing to specific needs and wants from community to community.

“Albertsons has taken a strong and sincere commitment,” said Chew of his client’s reach for APA patrons. Indeed, Albertsons has taken to printing ads in Chinese, Tagalog and Vietnamese, and signed on to spots on ethnic television and radio shows. The message alone, however, doesn’t draw in the clients. Albertsons has studied what products its growing client base is looking for. From non-perishables to produce to meats, an ethnic influence has taken a hold of the store’s selections. Chickens packaged with feet and head intact and “head on” shrimp appeal to the APA consumer. Albertsons is trying to bring to the large one-stop supermarket what small groceries in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and along the city’s Clement and Irving streets, have done for decades. Traditions and cultural celebrations also play a role: Albertsons offers coupons in lucky red envelopes for the lunar new year and sells tasty moon cakes for the autumn moon festival.

Len Fong, who rose though the ranks of general market agencies, including a stint as director for Mosaica (Young & Rubicam’s first Asian market division), and is now an independent marketing consultant for clients targeting the multicultural markets, attributes the failure of mainstream advertisers to reach the ethnic market in part to “the ignorance and the stubbornness of Corporate America.” But, Fong also says that part of the problem may be that people like himself and others who work with ethnic media need to push harder.

“We might not be doing the best job we can to communicate the importance of ethnic marketing to a company’s market share and as a source of new revenues that it might not get otherwise,” said Fong.

Albertsons offers coupons in lucky red envelopes for the lunar new year.

The disparity in dollars is obvious. Chew estimates that in the last year, all dollars spent on Asian-targeted marketing nationwide totaled about $100 million, while a single company like Sprint can budget four times that much for a year’s advertising.

San Francisco is the fifth largest general advertising market in terms of media dollars spent. Chew notes that there are tremendous opportunities in Asian-targeted marketing that go against the current economy. He expects a pretty good year — not necessarily a banner year — for Asian-targeted marketing.

“California is where it’s at,” said Chew, citing that of the some 12.5 million Asians in the U.S., 40 percent are on the West Coast.

According to Chew, fields that are hot for those advertising dollars are financial products, insurance products, cars and casinos.

Retail, Chew warns, is especially tough when the retailer or its advertising company misses its audience. He cites the now well-known Abercrombie & Fitch blunder when it marketed T-shirts that portrayed Asians in offensive stereotypes with offensive messaging. Fong said that particular Corporate America faux pas could have easily been avoided with some cross-cultural sensitivity training or some in-language/in-culture focus groups.

Making a Difference with Ads

Rather than dwelling on what the Madison Avenue advertisers haven’t been doing for ethnic communities, Chew is quick to point out that another hot field is social marketing, campaigns that send messages to reform behavior or change perceptions.

Chew won this summer’s first annual Rainbow Award for multicultural marketing from the Newspaper Association of America. Chew was feted in Houston by the Vienna, Va.-based organization and the publisher and president of the Houston Chronicle, and honored by key publishers throughout the U.S. for his work in a social awareness campaign — The Asian Problem Gambling Campaign. The Rainbow Award is designed to honor the best in multicultural newspaper advertising and to underscore the branding power of newspapers.

“I am absolutely delighted to have received this ‘first of its kind’ for a campaign that is also a ‘first of its kind,’” said Chew, who developed the campaign for San Francisco’s NICOS Chinese Health Coalition. “It has been an overlooked problem in all the Asian communities as such. Through this campaign, I discovered that casinos that target this vulnerable group do a better job than huge health care organizations that speak to this audience,” he explained.

In these slow economic times, Corporate America may actually be starting to cater to those who haven’t been getting advertising attention. The Newspaper Association of America has launched a project to help newspapers create a product and has outlined circulation strategies to reach underserved audiences.

Bank of America, the nation’s largest consumer bank, spent $10 million on multicultural ads in 2001 and will spend $40 million this year. Liam McGee, president of the California unit, says it estimates 80 percent of its future U.S. growth will come from APAs, African Americans, and Latinos, particularly in the big markets of California, Texas and Florida.

Challenging Corporate America

Sandy Close, founder of Pacific News Service and New California Media (NCM), has challenged the status quo and is optimistic about the changes. She and over 400 ethnic media outlets that now make up NCM will brainstorm at this month’s third annual New California Media Expo and share tips about advertising to ethnic communities.

“Despite Sept. 11 and the recession, corporate sponsorship is up by 50 percent for the Expo,” said Close.

Close proudly points out that The Wall Street Journal in April carried a story on the reach of ethnic media based on a poll sponsored by NCM. A survey of 2,000 ethnic households in California conducted in 12 languages revealed that 84 percent got information through ethnic media and of those who regularly turned to ethnic media, 54 percent relied on ethnic media as a primary source of information.

That survey, says Close, is valuable to advertisers because the respondents also shared the ethnic media sources by name.

Maybe the Madison Avenue-types are finally getting the message: “Mainstream” is more than hot dogs and apple pie.

For more information on the New California Media Expo and Awards 2002, visit www.ncmonline.com or call 415-438-4755.