The move toward ethnic marketing - includes related articles on marketing to minorities and sources of marketing data

Nation's Business, July, 1992 by William Dunn

Among his best customers are Asian students--particularly Chinese--from the nearby University of Maryland who long for their favorite dishes. Vegetables at the market include Shanghai bok choy, mustard greens, rau moung, lemon grass, jute leaves, and Chinese broccoli grown by entrepreneurial Asian immigrant farmers in Florida and California.

"It reminds our customers of home. Plus, for them, this is like one-stop shopping," says Tanchanco, pointing across the narrow parking lot to a restaurant, a delicatessen, a bakery, an optician, and a jewelry shop--all mom-and-pop operations run by Asians and targeting primarily Asians.

Regardless of the goods or services they're marketing, all businesses going after minority consumers must fit the message to the specific target group. "I think tailoring a message is more important than anything else," says Doherty, of Impact Resources.

There are several related elements to successful minority marketing/advertising: finding the appropriate advertising message and messenger, the media best-suited to deliver the message, strategically located sales outlets where customers can conveniently go for the goods and services, and a helpful sales staff drawn at least in part from the target community.

Frank Cruz, 52, who quit a network TV job in 1990 to launch Gulf Atlantic Life Insurance Co. with a friend, says the company's ads are geared to Hispanics' strong family orientation. "Our pitch to them is to start saving for your kids while you're here. We know you're hard-working; we know you're educating your children. We want you to start thinking about saving for the future of those kids through insurance products and commodities."

Unlike corporations with expensive national ad campaigns, small ethnically oriented businesses are more apt to run low-cost ads in community newspapers, on cable television, or on local radio programs serving specific audiences.

For most mom-and-pop shops, advertising is even more modest than that--typically no more than fliers and word of mouth. Says Ademiluyi of African Eye: "Word of mouth has been fantastic for us. It's one of the best forms of advertising."

Cruz, of Gulf Atlantic Life Insurance, says that Hispanics who have not been in the United States long enough to become proficient in English do not turn to network television or major, nationally distributed newspapers for information. Thus, to use those media to advertise to them, he says, "is ludicrous. You go to the Hispanic media to reach them. If you're in the Los Angeles area, you have eight or nine AM and FM radio stations--all Spanish-speaking."

Pyramid Books advertises in such publications as the Washington Afro-American & Tribune, the Baltimore Afro-American, and the student newspaper of Howard University, in Washington, D.C., as well as in fliers and by direct mail.

While Pleasant Co. does some magazine advertising, it promotes its dolls and accessories primarily through its catalog, which is sent to households that have made previous purchases and to people who--often after being referred by friends--call a toll-free phone number. Pleasant books are also available through bookstores.