Advertisers crazy over the rich Asian American market

SCREEN CAPTURE

Liberty Mutual has been running this ad since 2015 featuring actress Midori Francis and her car named 'Brad.'

Have you noticed the number of Asian Americans on television lately? State Farm is launching a new ad campaign targeted at the Asian American market.

Two TV spots have been planned as part of the insurance company's campaign. The new campaign will run in English and across Asian print and digital platforms, “with the intent of generating positive associations that reach a wide demographic of Asian Americans,” a release said.

Whether it's insurance, automobiles, credit cards, homes, fashion, legal advice, financial planning, or smart phones, marketers direct their pitches to the most likely consumers. Advertising agencies are not making a big deal out of inclusion, they're simply practicing good business sense.

The buying power of Asian Americans has reached $986 billion in 2017, and is projected to hit $1.3 trillion by 2022, according to Nielsen. Asians Americans are the least likely group to be promoted to managers in America, according to the Harvard Business Review. That sad misunderstanding or ignorance may be changing. 

Truth is, marketers, those people trying to sell you a product or a service, do extensive studies and make decisions based on data. Marketing to Asian Americans is targetting an audience most likely to buy or use your product.

While Nielsen has been touting the Asian American market the last few years, few advertisers have been slow to grasp reality. Certainly, until Crazy Rich Asians' hugely profitable box office, Hollywood basically ignored Asian Americans either as talent or as an audience.

SCREEN CAPTURE

Nissan teamed up with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, riffing off of actress Kelly Marie Tran's portrayal of heroine Rose Rico with this Asian American daughter learning how to drive.

Claritas, LLC®, a marketing leader that helps companies find and win their best customers, just unveiled a new report, "The Asian American Market Report." This report provides never-before-available insight into the buying behavior of Asian Americans, which can provide a key advantage to marketers who want to target this lucrative consumer segment.

“We are always looking for ways to build meaningful relationships with multicultural consumers though cultural insights,” said State Farm advertising director Ed Gold in a statement. “This creative work strikes a balance of providing information while recognizing and respecting cultural nuances.”

Asian Americans today represent the fastest-growing population segment in the United States, with 84 percent growth since 2000. Numbering over 19 million in 2019, the Asian American population is expected to continue to explode. In fact, the U.S. Asian population will add a projected 1,323 new members every day from 2019 to 2024. Compare this to the traditional majority “white” population, which is expected to lose 165 members every day in the next five years.

The fast-growing Asian American consumer segment has impressive buying power, with average household income of $116,319. That’s 36 percent greater than overall average U.S. household income. A whopping 24 percent of Asian households will earn $150,000 or more this year.

Asian American households also spend 21 percent more annually on consumer goods and services than the average U.S. household. They spend:

• Around $100 per month on entertainment – 45 percent more than the average U.S. household
• Around $3,000 annually on apparel – 15 percent more than the average U.S. household
• Roughly $5,000 annually on food at home – about 6 percent more than the average U.S. household
• Almost $12,000 annually on transportation, including new cars and trucks – around 10 percent more than the average U.S. household

“The face of America is evolving, and marketers need to recognize how population and demographic changes in the United States will affect their business success in the coming years,” said Karthik Iyer, COO at Claritas. “Claritas can help marketers understand exactly how to target specific customer segments such as Asian Americans – often with amazing results.”

For instance, one food producer wanted to increase sales for a product line it believed would appeal to U.S. Hispanic and Asian communities. It turned to the Claritas company Geoscape for data that would help its retailers identify the most likely buyers and deliver the right inventory and message to those consumers based on which specific multicultural communities shopped at each store. The result? Sales grew 300 percent in just one year.

So what is the best way to reach Asian Americans? LinkedIn is a good place to start, given that Asian Americans are two times more likely than average to use the platform. So are mobile-related social media strategies, given that Asian Americans are 23 percent more likely than the average U.S. household to access social media on their smartphones.

“At Claritas, we help companies find and cost-effectively connect with their best customers by digging deep into the buying and media usage behaviors of specific U.S. population segments – whether those are based on demographics, media usage, cultural or other factors,” Iyer said.

SCREEN CAPTURE

Xfinity used an Asian American family to promote its Internet service.

While the marketing numbers may be encouraging, it is important that we don't fall into the trap of stereotyping all Asian Americans as crazy rich, or part of the annoying "model minority." Other studies have shown the AAPI community having the largest gap between those that have a lot to spend and those who barely eke by.

Marketing to the Asian American community is crazy complicated. The most common  mistake advertisers make is to assume that Asian Americans are a homogenous demographic. 

There are almost two-dozen Asian cultural and language subgroups in the AAPI community; when someone's family comes to the U.S. divides AAPIs even further. You can't market to a first-generation immigrant the same way to an Asian American whose family is several generations U.S. citizens; and then there are generational differences between older AAPI's clinging to tradition and Gen X and Millennials.

So ... when Gerbers, makers of baby food, picked its Spokesbaby of the Year, Kairi Yang from Hickory, North Carolina. was it simply coincidence that the infant happened to be Hmong American? Or was there another motive in play, considering the growing Asian American community and its demographics showing that Asian Americans tend to be younger than the rest of their fellow Americans and more likely to be raising young families.

GERBER

Expect to see lots of Kairy Yang in Gerber advertising and on its website this year.

 ________________________________________________________________________________