If you’re still unconvinced of the potential benefits of developing strategies for a multicultural marketplace, just consider a few of these recent info-nuggets from Statistics Canada, drawn from the 1996 Census.
Of Canada’s 27 million people, 4.7 million have a mother tongue other than English or French. That figure has increased 15.1% since 1991 – more than twice the overall growth rate of the Canadian population.
Approximately 2.8 million people reported that the language they speak most often at home is neither English nor French.
Between 1991 and 1996, the number of people who reported Chinese as a mother tongue increased 42%, to 736,000. After English and French, Chinese is the language most commonly spoken at home in Canada.
Nearly 80% of the 1,039,000 immigrants who came to Canada between 1991 and 1996 – more than half of whom were from Asia and the Middle East – reported a mother tongue other than English or French. Approximately one-quarter were Chinese-speakers. Another fifth named either Arabic, Punjabi, Tagalog, Tamil or Persian as their mother tongue.
All of which adds up to a reality few marketers can afford to ignore. After all, as a cfmt/Compusearch study last year revealed, in the Toronto area alone, the four major ethnic populations (Chinese, Italian, Portuguese and South Asian) have a combined annual spending power of $13 billion.
In this latest of its reports on multicultural marketing, Strategy endeavors once again to provide some insight into the ways and means of targeting this country’s diverse ethnic communities.
After six years of trying, u.s. cable powerhouse Black Entertainment Television (bet) finally has a foothold in the Canadian market.
The Washington, d.c.-based service was one of the 15 new specialty channels launched in Canada this past October. bet is now available on cable across the country, with a 24-hour lineup of programming that includes news and information, music, sitcoms and sports.
The channel had been trying to get on the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission’s list of eligible satellite services since 1992.
Rosalyn Doaks, vice-president of national accounts and special markets, says bet was attracted to Canada because there was strong demand from the country’s under-served black community for such a channel.
‘People of color in Canada were lacking both radio and cable programming,’ she says. ‘In our early years, there was a great deal of consumer interest [from Canada], with people calling to inquire about the network, and hundreds of petitions asking for bet to be part of the cable service.’
For the moment, there is just a single North American bet feed, but Doaks says the channel intends to explore the possibility of a separate feed for this country, to accommodate the many inquiries they have received about opportunities for Canadian advertisers.
As part of its commitment to the crtc, she adds, bet will include Canadian artists on its video playlist, and use Canadian talent on some of its own productions.
While it’s difficult to get a handle on the size of the black community in Canada, census figures put it at around 8% of the country’s population. Doaks says there are some cultural differences between black Canadians and African-Americans – but past experiences in the u.k. and Japan suggest that bet, in fact, crosses color lines to appeal to anyone who likes good music and entertainment.
Lorraine Hughes, media director at TBWA Chiat/Day in Toronto, says that – like all the other new specialty services – bet will have an audience that’s more vertical than mass. But with its music and sitcom programming, the channel’s appeal will also go beyond the black community.
Of the 52 million u.s. households in which bet is currently seen, only about seven million represent African-American families.
Hughes says the channel is also attractive to advertisers because black urban youth are trendsetters. If they adopt a brand, its chances of success are greatly enhanced – just witness the examples of Nike and Tommy Hilfiger.
‘I can see some categories that would be interested in this kind of environment – specifically music, sports, sporting goods, shoes,’ she says. ‘The black youth market is a tremendous cultural influence. In many product categories, they seem to be early adopters. That’s the kind of market [advertisers like these] are looking for – and it’s one you can’t reach in too many other ways.’
In the past, Hughes says, most marketing to black urban youth has been at a grassroots level.
bet is more than a cable channel. It is a brand whose equity in the u.s. market has been carefully nurtured by its founder Robert Johnston, chairman and ceo of BET Holdings.
Johnston launched bet in 1980, with $15,000 and a $500,000 loan. Today, the entertainment conglomerate has a market value of more than us$800 million and a roster of 11 subsidiaries – among them BET Financial Services, an issuer of Visa cards through Chevy Chase Bank; the consumer magazines BET Weekend and Emerge; BET Direct, a direct marketing operation selling bet merchandise; and msbet, a venture with Microsoft.
Earlier this month, the bet brand of clothing for young men had its official launch in New York.
Also in this report:
– South Asian market a viable one, study says p.25
– Community well-served by Indo-Canadian media p.25
– ‘Language campaigns’ can increase trust p.26
– Ethnic direct marketing a data minefiel.
