Marketing to ethnic and cultural minority groups can be a tricky proposition.  Marketers may want to reach out to those groups, but run the risk of insulting people if the approach isn’t just right.  Some questions we’ve dealt with lately:  Should a bank create a website with financial information targeting African-Americans?   Should a chain of hardware stores run an advertising campaign targeting gay men and lesbians?

We know that minority groups like to feel represented in advertising.  But advertisers need great sensitivity to make sure they’re not perceived to be reinforcing stereotypes.  A recent article reported on several studies where children of immigrants didn’t like ads with incongruous minority images.  That is, when a member of their ethnic group or a symbol of their culture was shown out of context, or seemed to be arbitrarily “tacked on” to the ad, they reacted negatively.

In order to figure out how to best approach appealing to minority groups, marketers need to ask two simple questions:

• What is important to people in that group?
• What are their unmet needs?

While simple, these questions frequently get overlooked.  In looking at the answers to these questions in comparison to the answers of mainstream (non-minority) consumers, marketers can decide whether and how to best approach multicultural marketing efforts.

We find that focus group discussions (whether online or in-person) are particularly well-suited to elciting the answers to these questions and are preferable to individual interviews and surveys.  In individual research, participants tend to be more “politically correct.”  In a group discussion, however, once participants start to feel comfortable, they’re more likely to open up and tell us how they really feel.

To learn how your prospects and customers really feel, give us a call at (818) 752-7210.

Sources: Bureau West research; “Cents and Sensibility: Why Marketing to Multicultural Consumers Requires a Subtle Touch,” Knowledge@Wharton, March 03, 2010; How to boost your multicultural intelligence,” Quirks Marketing Research Review,  April 2010