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With the UK's minority ethnic audiences ever growing, advertisers should capitaliseon niche communities' demands for more content outside the mainstream channels.
Ifyou're trawling through census data in order to understand today's UK'snon-white audiences, forget it. The world has changed irrevocably since 2001.And minority ethnic audiences, which are thought to account for 10 per cent ofthe UK population, are now some of the most complicated and diverse.
Theycould also be some of the most lucrative. IPA data from 2003 suggests thecombined disposable income of all the UK's minority ethnic groups is pounds 32billion, with other estimates putting that figure as high as pounds 300 billionby 2010.
Thisshould not be underestimated, particularly during an economic slowdown. 'Intimes of recession, advertisers need to look at niche advertisingopportunities,' Saad Saraf, the chief executive of the multicultural ad agencyMedia Reach, says. 'When a brand is looking for a 1 to 3 per cent shift in market share, it is niche audiences such as these that can swing a campaignbetween success and failure, and ultimately impact on a brand's bottom line.'
Nowadays, options span all forms of media. Star TV, one of Asia's leading entertainmentcompanies, hopes to cater for the dual identities of third- andfourth-generation British Asians through reformatted British TV shows such asThe X-Factor and Are You Smarter than a 10 Year Old? It is one of more than 80ethnic satellite channels that have sprung up since the deregulation of themedia sector in the 90s.
But it is online where ethnic media are growing the fastest. 'Many media ownersrealise that it is a lot quicker to grow communities around online, whereassetting up a print or TV channel requires more work and investment,' GitaSrivastava, the UK country head for People Group, says. The South Asianpublishing group has already launched People Online, an ad network of more than30 news and lifestyle sites that is registering 1.1 million users and is intalks with O2 and Barclays to advertise with it.
Interms of print titles, The Sun pitched its fork in the Polish newspaper marketearlier this year with a special Polish edition that ran during Euro 2008,while various UK-printed newspapers, such as Toplum Postasi for Turks andParikiaki for Greeks, keep immigrants from every part of Europe up to date. Butthis is just a small sample. According to brad, the media directory, there areno fewer than 85 ethnic media titles catering for almost every cultural groupin the UK.
Butare advertisers taking the bait? Given the supposed potential, there appears tobe a glaring absence of mainstream brands choosing to advertise in ethnicmedia. Take a recent issue of the Afro-Caribbean title The Voice, where ahandful of niche brands (including Moneygram and Old Jamaica Ginger Beer) arestill heavily outnumbered by classified-style tactical ads for educationcourses, travel agents and public events. Even O2.pl, the second-most-visitedPolish website in the UK, showcases only a few digital ads for Tesco andMastercard among the wealth of ads from Polish companies. This is a trendsymptomatic across much ethnic media, which still attracts more niche servicesin search of the 'brown pound' than mainstream brands attempting to grow theirprofile.
Sowhy aren't the big brands investing in ethnic media? The reasons are equivocal,but one is that it is still early days for all parties. Saraf says many ethnic-media publishers still have to 'raise their game' in a bid to engagewith larger advertisers and their agencies, while advertisers need to researchtheir ethnic audience more and engage them more purposefully. With so manyplayers entering the market daily, media agencies are still to be convinced ofthe circulation and readership data of many titles, which is not helped by thefact that certain titles still lack tightly regulated third-party auditing.
Meanwhile,in a world where return on investment is key, many brands feel safer inmainstream media, rather than investing in niche titles, where content and tonecan remain a mystery and when many titles haven't yet had the time to bitetheir market. And in stark contrast to the US, many brands seem to feel quietlyapprehensive of entering a dialogue with consumers predicated by race orcultural background.
Yetall of this should be challenged. With the UK's minority ethnic audiencesgrowing and niche communities seeking content from outside of the mainstreamchannels, advertisers are urged to seize this moment to diversify their mediastrategies.
'Most media agencies are aware that specific multicultural audiences exist, but theirthinking has got to be deeper than just surface level,' Ope Bankole, the headof advertising and marketing for GV Media, one of the leading publishers ofAfro-Caribbean magazines, says. 'If you choose to reach the diaspora ofnon-white London by running ads in Metro just because the entire Tube carriagereads it, that's got to be a foolhardy media strategy.'
Yet the issue of advertisers and ethnicity raises even bigger questions. As itleaves its past behind, Britain has had a cautious (sometimes awkward) relationship with minority audiences. Desperate to show itself as reflective ofsociety, it tends to settle for a policy of blanket multiculturalism thatpromotes inclusion, rather than delineating between different groups.
This can often backfire. Earlier this year, Samir Shah, a member of the BBC's boardof directors, said broadcasters had made up for their lack of executives fromethnic minorities by putting too many black and Asian faces on screen. This, heasserted, had led to a 'world of deracinated coloured people flickering acrossour screens - to the irritation of many viewers and the embarrassment of thevery people such actions are meant to appease'.
Suchworries have hampered advertisers wanting to reflect society and engageminority ethnic audiences, but that lack the confidence to do so. A study by Mediaedge.cia for Channel 4 concluded that while such audiences represented a 'significantopportunity', plenty of advertising was failing to connect. Often, this wasbecause advertisers hoped to engage minority ethnic audiences simply byfeaturing them. As the study pointed out, this could have the reverse effect.It described the fallacy as a 'double-edged sword' that split communitiesbetween those which saw ethnic representation as positive and those who saw itas 'tokenistic and stereotypical'.
David Fletcher, the head of MediaLab, a research division at Mediaedge.cia, explains: 'Identity tends to be used simultaneously to show similarities anddifference. Many Asians, for example, would consider themselves as English andIndian, so they are not automatically differentiated among their peers but areseen as bringing something unique to the table that no-one else does. It's notas simple as one or the other.'
Ad agencies, too, need to work harder to get beneath the surface when addressingminority ethnic audiences. Ogilvy Advertising's recent ad for Tilda ricefeaturing a distraught Indian mother who found her son cooking rice in amicrowave may have been received better earlier this decade when BBC comedyGoodness Gracious Me was in its prime. But ten years on, with Asians still rawafter the effects of 7/7 and the BNP recently winning its first seat on theLondon Assembly, it is not quite the same laughing matter. 'To broadcast amainstream ad like that was absolutely dreadful,' the chief executive of oneethnic media agency says. 'Asians will hate it and I'm not sure the Englishwill like it either. Honing a strategy around a worried Indian mother out ofGoodness Gracious Me is not only negative, it's dated. People have moved on.'
Fortunately for advertisers, the rise of ethnic media channels has paved the way for atighter dialogue, while specialist agencies are on hand to help advertisersfine-tune their messages appropriately. Sterling Media, a media agency for theSouth Asian market, points out that ethnic identities are never constant, andadvises advertisers keen to create demographic clusters that, rather thanstereotype, understand that classifications evolve over time. 'Ethnicity is amultidimensional expression of identity that is affected by other things suchas immigration or intermarriage,' its founder, Teji Singh, says. 'Rather thandefining ethnic groups with one fixed term, demographics have to be more fluid:as a result, terms are coined to define new audiences.'
Recent ones include: 'British-born confused desi' - Asians born in the UK who findtheir sense of identity temporarily locked between Eastern upbringing andWestern culture (particularly among Muslim communities in the wake of thepolitical climate after 9/11); 'Brasian' (British Asian) - those born in the UKbut with roots still existing in the subcontinent; and 'British and desi' forpeople whose identities swing intermittently towards either side.
Meanwhile, among the Polish communities, identities have been split into three groupsdifferentiated by the level of English spoken, reasons for migrating and thetime intended to stay in Britain (see box, p5).
Yet even applying temporal classifications can be dangerous. Don't forget SouthAsians, who largely comprise Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankancommunities and speak 28 languages between them. Meanwhile, Eastern Europeansinclude Polish, Lithuanians and Slovakians; Middle Eastern groups includeArabic and Persian; and Afro-Caribbean includes Ghanaian, Somali, Nigerian andCaribbean.
Each group is not only diverse, but also has its own attitudes and lifestylesdepending on its generation, socio-economic group, religion and relationshipwith the UK. Take today's Polish immigrants who, buoyed by European Unionaccession, dip in and out of the country to make a quick buck, and compare themwith the first wave of post-war immigrants.
Similarly,contrast the first-generation Gujarati communities that came to the UK fromIndia and Africa in the 50s and 60s and compare their weekly digest of thefirst-generation title Gujarati Samachar with that of their children, born andraised in the UK, many of whom consume mainstream media as well as payinghomage to their cultural heritage through an appreciation of Bollywood orweekly glance at the Eastern Eye.
It then becomes clear that difference, not similarity, is key. In a reverse trendto multiculturalism, which promotes a society of inclusion based on collective similarities, many advertisers and media owners are now going the extra mile tocater to these differences. Earlier this year, COI restructured its black andminority ethnic framework in a bid to better target new groups, includingmigrants and emerging communities. Patricia Macauley, COI's head of culturaldiversity, argued at the time that the UK demographics had changed and that thegovernment faced 'an increasing challenge to target specific ethnic minoritygroups.'
GVMedia, which publishes titles for Afro-Caribbean audiences, has two maintitles: The Gleaner (targeting Jamaica-born UK residents) and The Voice (mainlyfor British-born black and Caribbean audiences). Nonetheless, it has still hadto venture into more than 15 supplements addressing individual interests of theAfro-Caribbean community including food, fashion and lifestyle, parenting andmale issues. 'All these extensions were born from the need to segment and talkindividually to specific groups of the Afro-Caribbean audience, rather thanassume they're all assimilated into one collective culture,' Bankole says.
It's a daunting prospect, particularly for a society that has grown comfortable withthe term 'multiculturalism'. But it's also a necessity for advertisers lookingto address a country whose ethnic complexion and immigration patterns are moremultilayered and complex than ever before.
Advertisers need look no further than the US, where some of the worst fears of implementingan ethnically driven campaign should be allayed. With the combined buying powerof ethnic Americans estimated as more than dollars 1 trillion, many of thebiggest advertisers, including Verizon and Wal-Mart, have multicultural marketing heads tooversee ethnic campaigns directed at the rich plethora of immigrant communities.
It is a strategy that, if anything, has fostered a more respectful understandingof cultures and improved the bottom line of many brands, largely withoutprompting outcries of racism or segregation. Whether UK advertisers and theiragencies yet have the will, sensitivity and cultural empathy to do the same isan open question.
ANNA
Twenty-seven-year-oldAnna Rykczinski comes from a small hamlet 30 miles east of Krakow in Poland -not to be confused with the insalubrious estate three miles south of Londonknown locally as Crack City, where she shares a two-bed council flat with fourfriends.
Unlikeher flatmates, who are here to party, Anna is here for life. She dreams of ahouse in Ealing, a new Ford Focus and a British husband - in no particularorder of preference.
To get them, Anna knows she has to assimilate. She already speaks English with asmoky, cut-glass accent acquired from Joanna and Johnnie, the parents of Boudicca and Lysander, for whom she nannies. She reads the London free sheets fluently. But, acquisitive and materialistic though she is, she finds them fullof empty tittle-tattle compared with the sober authority of Polish titles suchas Gazeta Wyborcza, Polish Express and O2.pl, which she consults daily online.
Shehas an ambivalent relationship with UK brands. To her, they are still more apromise of Britishness than a reassurance of product quality. But, being a bitof a peasant, she doesn't quite understand why you would pay over the odds fora product just because it spent a lot of money telling you to. Come on, Anna.Get with the programme. How are you going to ever fit in with attitudes likethat?
LEADING MEDIA BRANDS
TV:Zee TV, Star TV, Ben TV
Press:Polish Express, Asian Eye, The Voice
Radio: Sunrise Radio, Spectrum Radio, Radio Orla
Web:Rediff.com, blacknet.co.uk, shaadi.com
POLES IN BRITAIN
Knownfor their work ethic and quality of craftsmanship, few migrants have stampedtheir mark on Britain's labour market in recent years like the Polish. Thecommunity is now the largest single group of migrants to the UK, with estimatesvarying between 230,000 and one million.
Contraryto the first wave of immigrants in 1949, today's Poles have numerousmotivations for coming here, with many likely to be transitory visitors ratherthan permanent residents. A recent study by Mediaedge.cia identified three groups.
Theseare: 'trippers', who arrive in the UK for a season with the aim of earning asmuch money as quickly as possible; 'savers', who plan to stay in the UK longer,with the aim of accumulating as much cash as they can and ultimately investingit back into Poland or repaying debts; and 'blenders', who have long-term plansto remain in the UK and whose lifestyle reflects British life. They may beyounger, better-educated and already have roots here.
Mediaconsumption varies, too. The internet is by far the most popular source forinformation, with many choosing sites run by the Polish community in the UK. InMay, four former Guardian journalists set up polot.co.uk, a site for Poles thatregistered 700,000 hits in its first month. Other sites include londonynek.net,polishexpress.com and wider Polish web portals such as wp.pl or O2.pl - thesecond most popular Polish website in the UK after Google, according to Hitwise.
Manystruggle with English and (with the exception of blenders) are unlikely toengage with the majority of British media. Instead, their print-mediapreferences are likely to be the UK-published Polish papers, including GoniecPolski, Polish Express and Cooltura.
Advertisersshould also think about their creative strategy when targeting them. 'Polishaudiences prefer ads with direct and factual information about products, whereasads with humour or that imply something unsaid tend to produce less interest,'Tomasz Kmiecik, the managing director of Fortis Publishing, says. 'One Britishsupermarket created an ad using a popular Polish phrase relating to drinking.But rather than being taken humorously, most Poles found it utterlyderogatory.'
DCSFAND HM REVENUE & CUSTOMS
Workingtax credits and free early education are two government initiatives to supportunemployed or low-income parents with childcare.
Inrecent years, the Government had noticed a significant absence of take-up ofthese initiatives among black, Asian and minority ethnic communities (BME). Anumber of reasons were identified for this, including financial pressures,guilt among mothers for sending their children to childcare and concerns aboutsafety.
TheDepartment of Children, Schools and Families appointed Media Reach to createand implement a campaign to raise awareness of both initiatives among thehard-to-reach Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities, and boost participation.It would use all forms of media.
Acampaign was created inviting adults to 'Give your child a brighter future'.Media was bulk-bought and a series of animated television ads aired over thesummer.
Aimedat BME parents, the campaign promoted the 12.5 hours of free early-learningentitlement that is available to all three- and four-year-olds. The TV spotsran on a number of ethnic satellite channels, including Prime TV, Ary Digital,DM Digital, Geo TV, Geo News, Bangla TV, ATN Bangla and Channel S, withversions translated into Bengali, Punjabi and Urdu.
Thecampaign was supported by radio ads on local stations such as Sunrise FM, andon local regional stations including ASR Manchester, XL in Birmingham as wellas print ads in a number of regional press titles, as well as Bengali andUrdu-targeted ethnic media.
Directmail and live events were used. A 200,000 leaflet drop was carried out in areaswith high levels of Asian households including London, Slough, Birmingham,Kirklees, Rotherham, Oldham, Luton and Manchester. Media Reach also worked withthe DCSF and local authorities to host outreach Fun Days in Bradford, Rotherhamand Tower Hamlets and Camden in London. Each of these days re-enacted a nurseryenvironment for children with distributors on hand to deliver information.
Helplinetracking revealed that calls among the targeted group increased by 60 per cent,with a high level of recall registered by the target audience.
