The Art of Cultural Correctness

American Demographics, Nov 1, 2004 by William F. Gloede

Byline: WILLIAM F. GLOEDE

THE LABEL "MULTICULTURAL" IS, IN A WORD, loaded. It's been borrowed from politics, the land of the loaded word, and has been inappropriately applied to the practice of marketing to specific ethnic and racial groups. Used politically, its purpose is to describe a society in which white, Anglo cultural hegemony has been broken - forever - by the rise in numbers and thus power of people who are not white and Anglo.

In fact, mainstream advertising and marketing are multicultural in nature, based on the notion that if one wishes to sell products to the largest number of people, one then approaches people of all races and cultures within a given society. Identifying and reaching members of a specific community, on the other hand, is anything but multicultural.

Still, as much as one would love to banish the word from the lexicon of business, one must realize that in business speak, words do take on a life of their own (think, for example, of "prioritize," which was at one time considered merely corporate jargon but is now listed in the dictionary). The point here is that in order to succeed, marketing and advertising campaigns directed at a specific group of people that are culturally connected must be culturally relevant. This may seem obvious, but after reviewing many directed marketing efforts over the years, we've noted a decided lack of attention paid to this concept.

We set out to find recent successful marketing and advertising campaigns that put cultural relevance first. We found six that, through research and the application of the simple powers of human intuition, made the grade, sometimes with a dramatic twist or two. What characterizes all is success.

Allstate Courts the Chinese Market

There's nary a U.S. born citizen who doesn't know that you are, in the realm of insurance, in good hands with Allstate. The brand is considered high-end, with prompt, knowledgeable service, and rock-solid integrity (sorry Prudential!). But to Chinese Americans, Allstate was not the first company to come to mind when buying auto, homeowner's, renter's or other types of insurance. Word of mouth in the Chinese community most often led prospective customers to low-cost providers. It fell to Kang & Lee Advertising to reverse this impression. Of course, Allstate, having relied on the "good hands" image it had cemented over decades, looked to translate that concept into the Chinese market. Problem was, it doesn't. Kang & Lee, a New York-based agency, set out on a research sojourn with a benchmark study of Chinese Americans and Chinese American agents for Allstate. The trick was to somehow make the company's longtime brand identity relevant to this group.

The dilemma centered around the fact that the English slogan doesn't make sense in any Chinese dialect. According to Larry Moskowitz, vice president of strategic marketing services for Kang & Lee, Allstate, was "very nervous, understandably," because the slogan is "an iconic thing in American advertising." Yet, the insurance company gave the OK to pursue an effort to try to convey the same notion in a culturally relevant way. Kang & Lee, having conducted focus groups with consumers and agents, came up with a Chinese-language version of the tag line, which, roughly translated, says "turn over to our hands, relax and be free of worry." (There were more than 30 executions, culled to three, the other two being the literal Chinese version of "control the way to protection" and the middle ground "protection is completely held in our hands.") The first slogan was the overwhelming favorite of the focus groups. But then it had to go to the legal department, where the concern focused on the idea that one could drive into an accident and be free of worry. Further examination assuaged the legal misgivings since there were many slogans that were similar in tone, which meant that Kang & Lee had hit upon a culturally significant message. The client went for it. The campaign started in Seattle and New York last year, and has since expanded to California. Based on a study done six months after the effort was under way in the first two cities, awareness of Allstate had doubled. The campaign continues, now moving into specific types of insurance. "Hats off to Allstate, for going the whole nine yards," says Moskowitz, using a phrase that may not be familiar to many Chinese Americans. But Allstate understands it.

El Pollo Loco - A Double Play

El Pollo Loco is a restaurant chain that traces its roots to Mexico. While it has been out of the hands of its founder, Pancho Ochoa, for two decades, what sets El Pollo Loco apart is that is came here from south of the border, where its first location was established in 1975. The chain is now working to both sustain its Latino base and gain ground in the fast-food business on the West Coast and soon, in the city of Chicago. El Pollo Loco has been sold several times since Ochoa brought it to the U.S. and is now owned by a New York equity firm. Nonetheless, it is expanding. Therein lies the twist in this case study. The chain's claim to fame is based on a uniquely Mexican and Central American way of cooking chicken. It's grilled, whole, after about an hour of marinating in a proprietary mixture of citrus juices, garlic and other unspecified ingredients. This concoction may be well known to folks from Mexico and Central America, but to the rest of the population, it remains a mystery.