Multicultural Intelligence: Eight Make‐or‐Break Rules for Marketing to Race, Ethnicity, and Sexual Orientation

Citation

Singh, R. (2010), "Multicultural Intelligence: Eight Make‐or‐Break Rules for Marketing to Race, Ethnicity, and Sexual Orientation", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 27 No. 5, pp. 478-478. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363761011063376

In 1963, E. Frederic Morrow, White House's first African‐American executive who served President Eisenhower as an administrative officer for special projects during 1955‐1961, wrote a book called, Black Man in the White House. The book vividly described the breaking of racial barriers at the Oval office, while facing jibes from the press that Morrow's biggest responsibility was assigning parking places to other White House staffers. After 46 years, another black man enters the White House, but this time to head it. The press and the people, however, feel that color‐based prejudices will now become a thing of the past. Or will they? America has always been the melting pot of the world. Immigrants from all hues have come and become acculturated and assimilated with time, and to different extents. Some of the acculturation and assimilation was painful as it involved multiple tradeoffs such as between survival and maintaining multiple identities or between integration and assimilation. Generations later, the immigrants' children still face the same confusing scenario. Is the America of today any different than that of yester years? Will America really come to terms with its diversity, ethnicity, racial prejudices, and people with various shades of sexual orientations? If any one can come closer to being accurate, then it should be David Morse's book, Multicultural Marketing.

The biggest challenge for any author to write a book on multiple cultures and languages, and to make comparisons across time and regions, is to deal with the magnitude of diversity, and inherent contradictions within these segments It also requires very fine research and most importantly keeping one's and others' personal prejudices apart from objective reality. The author of this book has managed to do all of these very well, and that is why the book is probably one of the finest of its league on managing multiple cultures, useful not just for marketers or advertisers, but for everyone interested in understanding, and managing people from multiple cultures. For firms that are confused with finding the most suitable variables for segmenting the people living in its highly diverse fifty states, this book probably has most, if not all, answers. This book is also worth recommending as primary reading for students of cross‐cultural marketing.

The book is very interesting to read, and true to its spirit, makes it easy for any reader to understand the nuances of the diversity in America, be it explaining the immigration of Hispanics, their acculturation process, or be it how African‐Americans face racial barriers, or even how Asian‐Americans are stereotyped even today.

The book is also very neatly divided into two sections. The first section, written in six chapters, describes multi‐cultural marketing using examples based on extensive research done by author's own market research company, as well by others. Each chapter is also dedicated to each of the main streams of immigrants such as Hispanic Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and LGBTs (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgenders). The narrative is extremely forthright and bold, while balancing all cultural sensitivities. However, the book has a greater relevance for advertisers; nevertheless, marketing aspects such as using right choice of variables for segmentation and right approach for targeting has been vividly explained using examples of several companies. The biggest takeaways of the book come in the second section in the form of eight rules of multicultural marketing. These are as follows:

1. 1.

   Boost your MQ.

2. 2.

   Divide and conquer.

3. 3.

   Don't trust the experts.

4. 4.

   Don't let the joke be on you.

5. 5.

   Don't get lost in translation.

6. 6.

   Push their buttons.

7. 7.

   Market on a wink and a prayer.

8. 8.

   Make up, don't cover up.

The author provides interesting examples of “hyphenated segments,” which are Hispanic‐, Asian‐, and African‐Americans who constitute 30 percent of US population today. Of these, Hispanics are expected to become half of the total population by 2042. This demographic shift would produce a swing in the share of dollar spend on food and other household and personal consumable products. The dilemma for marketers targeting these segments is the choice of the media to target with their message. Appropriate cultural cues used tastefully in advertising messages can build strong positive attitude towards company and its brands, and eventually brand loyalty. On the other hand, using advertising that excludes, or is perceived to be culturally offensive can be a literally costly mistake.

From “two Americas” to a “New America” was a transition that involved a painful journey for most of these culturally diverse segments that have built America into one of the richest nations of the world. Will New America sustain its dream run, and keep attracting more new immigrants that are required to take the dream forward. Will President Obama drive new rules of multicultural integration? Will cultural stereotyping die its death? Will advertisers tap the Hispanic segment successfully, without offending them, and still make good money? Will ethnic identity win over assimilation and integration? Or is multicultural segmentation a myth … and one‐to‐one marketing is the only reality of today? This book will give lots of insights to tackle these questions that advertisers and marketers may have.