All Marketing is Cultural

Many marketers still ask the question: What is different about marketing to Hispanics, Asians, African Americans, etc.? Isn't marketing just marketing?

Marketing is marketing but few marketers consciously realize that what they do is cultural marketing. So when they target women with children, they are really addressing a subculture in the United States.  When they address young people they are addressing another culture within a culture. When they target middle class homeowners they are not just addressing a so called "demographic," they are addressing a culture.

There is little awareness of what a culture is. A culture is a set of designs for living that are shared by many people, and sometimes those designs for living are passed on from generation to generation.

Most advertising would not work if it were not cultural. The marketer attempts to connect with consumers who share something in common, but the "demographic" is not what they share in common, it is the way of being, thinking, doing, valuing, and feeling.

Thus, it should not be surprising that to reach out to Latinos, for example, the marketer needs to understand their culture. And that is profound because it goes to the core of who people are. That is what ethnic marketing consists of. It is the understanding of the culture and the contextual issues surrounding it. It is different because the culture is different, but also because it is a lot harder to market to a different culture than to the one you are part of. See, culture is like water for the fish, we are seldom aware of it. We think a joke is funny just because it is funny. Not so, a joke is funny because it is culturally bound. A joke is funny to a group of people who share a culture, and not to others. An emotional appeal is emotional to those who share a common reaction to that appeal.

When the marketer crosses cultures s/he needs to make many assumptions explicit. There is no more obviousness of water to the fish. The fish needs to become aware of the water in order to succeed. That is what has to happen with marketers. They need to step out of the comfort of their own culture to be effective in another. That is why it is so difficult to do cross cultural marketing.

But, all marketing is cultural, and it is hard for many to realize that. So, now, why do we need to make special efforts to market to Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, etc.? Because they swim in different waters.

Why it is so difficult to do cultural advertising well?

Advertising, almost by definition is cultural. Advertising influences our culture. The culture influences advertising. Now, in a country with so many different cultures producing advertising that is meaningful to these diverse cultures is a challenge. While it is true that in some cases a single message may do well across cultures, many times the message would be more effective if it is customized to the target culture.

Many culturally directed ads are simply a manifestation of stereotypes and relatively trite. That is because the difference between objective and subjective culture is not generally known. That Hispanics have large families and that they are family oriented is true, but definitely overused, and almost stereotypically used in advertising. That Hispanics have an affinity for social gatherings is true, but also overused. These are all manifestations of objective culture. These are the cultural manifestations that we can observe. And because we can observe them we think these are the culture itself. But culture is much more than objective culture.

Subjective culture, however, is what we carry in our heads. These are our values and beliefs, for example, believing that our children will transcend us. That they are more important than us because they represent a step towards infinite eternity. That is subjective culture. When those values and beliefs are inserted in advertising they have a high probability of connecting with the consumer. That is, assuming that the rest of the message is actually honest and the product or service is valuable in itself. Thus making a product or service the one that embodies a feeling of pride, a sense of transcendence, the emotion of celebrating being alive, for example, can be much more powerful than the simple use of objective culture symbols.

So, why there is so much advertising that is sadly empty and simply innocuous? Because many in the advertising industry have not yet understood these issues. Many appear to think that simply convoluting a story and doing something to stand out in the clutter will do the job. Standing out is useful when what stands out is a central part of the message. Making the the story complex for the sake of creativity is not.

Clarity, honesty, directness, and having a good product or service to sell are key to good advertising. Creativity resides in parsimony. Simple elegance that as part of the message makes it emotionally powerful.

After all these years of doing research I have learned that Hispanic consumers are eager to connect with and believe honest advertising messages. So, it is our job to make that connection and believability available. We need to find the insights that make for the cultural occasion, for the cultural emotion that can surround our ideas, products, and services. This requires in-depth research. Research that digs deep into how people feel and think.

The process of account planning is precisely to make the voice of the consumer heard in the advertising context. But it is not necessarily the overt expression of what consumers say, but those subtle beliefs and perceptions that have been ingrained as part of the enculturation process. That which we bring from our childhood. As marketers and advertisers, our duty is to comprehend where the consumer is coming from so we can show we understand him/her. So we can better be of service.

Of Hispanic Time, Calendars, and Tradition

Latin American calendars are a cultural tradition that can provide an interesting marketing tool to marketers in the United States. The notion that time has different dimensions for Hispanics than for other cultural groups is relatively well known. There are those who talk about "Latin time" and those who talk about "mañana." "Mañana" or tomorrow represents how many of us, Hispanics, think about what we need to do in life.

Tomorrow is a great time management tool because it allows one to postpone all things that are not emergencies, thus piling huge numbers of activities into a very small tomorrow. Tomorrow presents interesting possibilities as those who expect things tomorrow may forget about them or the activity may have lost interest. Thus tomorrow saves effort because one does not waste time doing things that tomorrow will show are not important.

Now, calendars represent a related but more complex story. Latin American calendars are not just for providing the date and to keep us organized. They are cultural icons that symbolize how we feel about time. Latin American calendars display cultural and historic pictures in their pages. They illustrate the past and the pride associated with it. In many ways, calendars are decorations that we cherish as we try to pile things up into tomorrow. We can see how much more time we have for enjoying the present. Looking at the calendar gives us a glimpse of the past that we respect, celebrate the moment, and look at a "mañana" that is slow to come.

I remember growing up with calendars that the grocery store, the butcher shop, the phone company, the electric company, the shoe store, the restaurant, and others had given my family at the end of the year. These were presents given to us so that we would remember those nice merchants that helped us decorate our walls with so many images of our tradition, our tastes, and our cultural pride.

Traditional Latin American calendars can be of great marketing value in this modern era, where Hispanics are still proudly honoring the symbology of their culture, while most others are just rushing into the future. Large and small marketers can establish an emotional bond with Hispanics by providing them with these traditional calendars as tokens of appreciation. They serve as a continuous reminder that a specific business or brand thinks about us and shares with us the images of our culture.

I have come across http://www.latinworldcalendar.com/. An exploration of this site will provide good examples of the different types of art and motifs that Latin American calendars offer.

While time flies for so many people, it is good to have a traditional calendar that can help us keep time still for just a little while.

Advertising to US Hispanics with Creative from Latin America

I come from a behavioral perspective when it comes to advertising. For me if an ad does not sell, it is not a good ad, regardless of how many awards it gets.

It is interesting that by claiming that there is not enough talent in the United States, Hispanic Advertising agencies are starting companies or subcontracting creative work in Latin America.

That is interesting because the principle of understanding the audience of the message gets distorted with this logic. How can a creative in Buenos Aires know how Hispanic teens in Los Angeles live and feel about themselves? How can a creative in Caracas know how Puerto Ricans in New York enjoy products and services?

Not that these creatives are not good at what they do, but how can they communicate effectively without knowing their audience. Just because they speak Spanish they are not necessarily adept at understanding the specific psycho-socio-cultural characteristics of Hispanics in the US.

I am not trying to say that Latin American creatives cannot get to do good advertising for US Hispanics, but the probability of that being so is not very high. They may get awards and distinctions with their creativity but will they help sell products to an audience they do not know well?

That is why having more Hispanics/Latinos in the US educated in Marketing and Advertising is of great importance. These individuals are more likely to have an intuition for the markets they will serve. Still, the general rule is that being Hispanic/Latino or Latin American does not make someone an expert on US Hispanic consumers. It is the study of the culture and lifestyles of US Hispanic consumers that can contribute to good advertising. Good US Hispanic account planning and creative work requires prior knowledge of the culture and also requires research and understanding of the intersection of the product/brand with the culture.

The moral of the story: Going far away for your messages can get you far away from your consumers