ABSTRACT
Ethnic marketing works on the premise that people of the same ethnicity are more alike than they are like others of the same social class, psychographic profile, age, or whatever other segmenting variable one would prefer to use. I am not sure that this statement was ever true; in the early years of the twenty-first century, I am sure that it is not. That this is not a matter of academic interest, there are the following “truths” of the changing face of the United States (Schreiber, 2001, pp. ix-x):
By the year 2005, people of color will represent one-third of the American population; by 2050 they will be a majority.
Ethnic Americans (African, Hispanic, and Asian-Pacific) are increasing seven times as fast as the rest of the population.
Ethnic Americans have economic clout. Their spending power has doubled in the past decade and is now over $1 trillion.
Only about 1 to 2 percent of media spending is currently dedicated to targeted ethnic media.
Today’s emerging ethnic consumers represent the largest, most overlooked market in America.
Many of today’s ethnic Americans can be effectively reached at less cost than mainstream consumers. Many live in well-defined areas, consume well-defined media, and shop in certain retail outlets.
I do not doubt the truth of any of the previous statements. However, if we have learned anything over the years since World War II, it is the fact that the old ethnicities do soften if not completely erode over time because people move away from the old neighborhoods and many people of different ethnicities, and the children have identities quite distinct from those of their parents. Tiger Woods’s possible ethnic identification is quite complex, nor is he alone. The dilemma of identification of mixtures of mixtures will do nothing but increase as the twenty-first century unrolls. Ethnic media have always been important in the United States; foreign language newspapers published in the United States were long the backbone of ethnic identification. Most of them are gone now, as are the “old country” churches; in most cities there will still be services in the European languages, but people drive long distances to attend them, and not every church serving the old ethnicity can mount the foreign language service. The role played by the newspaper has been taken over by the radio, broadcasting news from the old country in both English and the old-country language. Because so many of these programs are now on public-broadcasting stations, however, the possibility of advertising to the old communities is reduced.