Russians can be very frugal given the shortages many have experienced in the recent past in their home country. They tend to have traditional European tastes which are different from American preferences.
A look at family structures
According to Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, “Happy families are all alike;
every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This is certainly true, but even happy families tend to differ across cultures. Consider the following examples:
The average American family used to consist of a father, mother, and one or two children, but today it’s much smaller than in the past.
Hispanic and Asian families regularly consist of a father, mother, several children, grandparents, and often cousins. Children tend to live at home longer than in traditional American families, and they may even continue living there with their spouse after marriage. (This practice can actually save you money on marketing because you can reach more people with the same advertisements.)
African American families are predominately of two types: traditional family structures, much like Anglo American families, and female head of household families. Make sure the images in your advertisements convey the type of family you’re selling to. In the African American culture, god- parents can be an integral part of the family structure to help encourage children and teach strong values by setting a good example. You may want to include them in family photos in your marketing materials.
Segmenting the market based on
Keep in mind that minority families tend to be younger and larger, which not only accounts for their explosive population growth, but also means you target them differently (as explained in “Aiming Your Campaign at Your Target Market”). For example, in 2005, the median age of Caucasians in the United States was around 40 years old, while the average ages of Hispanics, African Americans, and Asians were 27, 30, and 35 years old, respectively. For the same year, the average family size of Whites in the United States was 2.1, whereas the average Hispanic family contained 4.7 members.
The importance of different acculturation levels
The longer you’re in a country, the more you tend to adapt to the cultural habits and ways of thinking. This is what acculturation is all about, and it results in creating ethnic subgroups — first-, second-, and third-generation populations — each of which responds differently to a company’s marketing and advertising.
Your target market’s acculturation level influences how you market to them.
First-generation immigrants, for example, are much more likely to have preferences and tastes of their homeland and be more comfortable seeing or hearing ads in their native language. Customers who’ve lived in the United States longer tend to have acquired more traditional American tastes and be more fluent in English. See Chapter 9 for more details on selling to immigrants of different generations.
Acculturation varies according to more than just how long a person has been in the States. It also depends on how different the person’s native language is from English, how the person was raised, her age, education level, economic status, type of neighborhood where the person lives, and other factors.
Generally speaking, however, new immigrants are less likely to speak English fluently and are less acculturated than people who’ve been here for several generations. So, how long have some groups been in the U.S.? Following are some valuable statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau (from 2000):
Nearly 70 percent of people from Asia were born outside the U.S.
Forty percent of Hispanics in the U.S. were foreign born.
Eight percent of Blacks were foreign born.
Accounting for cultural beliefs
Marketing professionals are so attuned to American beliefs and superstitions that they rarely step on consumers’ toes by mistakenly introducing offensive elements in their ads. You’re not likely to see the number 13 given a prominent
position in any ad, for example. Likewise, advertisers tend to avoid the color red (which reminds Americans of blood) and religious symbols (which could turn people off).
When developing marketing materials to advertise to other ethnic groups, you still have to remain aware of colors, numbers, and symbols that can turn cus- tomers away. They’re just different colors, numbers, and symbols, depending on the group. For example:
Red is the color of death in Korea.
White is the color of death in China and Japan, where red is considered good luck.
Purple signifies death in Mexico.
In most western cultures, red symbolizes passion, love, or danger.
The number 4 for most Asians is equivalent to the number 13 in America.
To truly understand the power of the number 4 in Asia, consider the fact that a Chinese tea set generally comes with five cups rather than four.
Most Asian merchants avoid packaging products in sets of four or label- ing them with a “4,” even on the price tag. Even a bank advertising loans at the low interest rate of 4.44 percent could be bad. One day I (Michael) got an uneasy feeling driving next to a truck that prominently featured the business owner’s phone number as “444-4444.” Although it may be memorable to most people, if your phone number contains unlucky digits for your customers, using an alternative contact number when trying to appeal to them would be wise. Many may find it easier to pass you by than take a chance dialing an unlucky phone number.
The number 7 is unlucky in Ghana and Kenya but lucky in India and the Czech Republic.
Dogs are considered unclean in Muslim countries. In Scotland, police had to issue an apology to Scottish Muslims who became upset when the police department included a photo of its popular 6-month-old German shepherd police pup on a postcard used to advertise a new nonemergency phone number.
The number 8 for most Asians is the equivalent to the American “lucky 7.”
Some people believe in lucky numbers so much that recently a gentle- man in Taiwan paid $1.5 million for the personalized license plate “8888.”
Before you scoff at that, you may want to ask yourself, “Where does someone get $1.5 million for a license plate?” Could it be because he believes in numerology?
For additional culture-specific do’s and don’ts, check out the appendix.
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Avoiding potentially offensive stereotypes
Want to upset your Hispanic customers? Choose as your company’s mascot a Chihuahua who speaks with an exaggerated Hispanic accent or a bandit who loves to steal tasty corn chips from unsuspecting consumers. If you’d rather upset the Asian community, select the right font — some English text that looks “Oriental.”
To avoid making such mistakes, consult with someone who’s mastered the sensitivities of your target market — preferably one or more people who are members of this market and understand the issues that can trigger a backlash. In the nearby sidebar, two multicultural experts highlight the importance of making comprehensive rather than merely cosmetic changes to your marketing program.
Repopulating your pictures
The first rule in multicultural marketing is to get some people in your photos who are in the same ethnic group (not sort of the same) as the people you’re targeting. For example, Asians can tell the difference between pictures of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, or Filipinos.