Marketing And Consumer Identity In Multicultural America

Massive demographic upheavals are changing the societal identities of American consumers and disrupting the effectiveness of traditional marketing techniques. The so-called mass market is dissolving into smaller groups of consumers who express distinctive ethnic, age-related, or lifestyle values by what they buy and how they buy it. Consumers in different subcultures speak different languages, read different magazines, watch different networks on TV, and buy in different places. The lesson for marketers is clear -- a single marketing campaign may no longer effectively reach a broad spectrum of consumers. Marketers and advertisers hoping to attract large numbers of American consumers must build relationships by mirroring the values and multiple identities of various groups. Marketers need tools to link their efforts to consumers within several subculture communities. Marketing and Consumer Identity in Multicultural America presents strategies and tools for marketers seeking to reach these emerging subcultures. Chapter 1 introduces the phenomenon of multiculturalism in America and its impact on marketing. Chapter 2 introduces the seven key shifts from traditional thinking that marketers must make to thrive in a multicultural world (e.g., from "market segmentation" to "market identification"). Chapters 3 through 7 profile five key subculture groups -- the elderly, Latinos, African Americans, gays and lesbians, and Asian Americans. Chapter 8 profiles several emerging groups, and chapter 9 is a comprehensive summary of marketing attitudes and techniques that are critical to success in this new multicultural environment.

Global trends in emerging ethnicity - and also in global marketing - make this an especially timely book. Marketing in a Multicultural World is the perfect volume for scholars, students, and professionals in marketing and race and ethnic studies.

In America today, you can connect to your ethnic heritage in dozens of ways, or adopt an identity just for an evening. Our society is not a melting pot but a salad bar--a bazaar in which the purveyors of goods and services spend close to $2 billion a year marketing the foods, clothing, objects, vacations, and events that help people express their (and others') ethnic identities. This is a huge business, whose target groups are the "hyphenated Americans"--in other words, all of us. As immigrant groups gain economic security, they tend to reinforce--not relinquish--their ethnic identification. Marilyn Halter demonstrates that, to a great extent, they do it by shopping. And their purchasing power is enormous. How has the marketplace responded to this hunger? Instantly and wholeheartedly: tweaking old products and inventing new ones; launching new brands in supermarkets, new music groups, vacation itineraries, language courses, toys, greeting cards, et cetera. This nexus of business and ethnicity is already seen as the hottest consumer development of this decade, and Halter is uniquely qualified to describe its origins, the exponential growth of products and advertising, and the phenomenal sales of items from salsa to Chieftains CDs. She addresses her subject with an abundance of anecdotal evidence, telling examples of ethnic marketing, and interviews with entrepreneurs (many of them immigrants) who are vigorously seizing the opportunities offered by the business of ethnicity. Shopping for Identity is provocative, intriguing, and farseeing, illuminating an important aspect of our contemporary way of life while validating the yearning we all feel for connection to our roots. "From the Hardcover edition.

Because American consumers transmigrate between social identities in expressing their values and affiliations, marketers must apply transcultural marketing methods and offer a cultural values proposition to build long-term customer relationships. This unique book weaves these topics into profiles of 9 influential American subcultures currently shaping their members marketplace choices.

The key to any marketing strategy is finding a way to reach and appeal to the consumer. In the case of a diverse consumer pool, marketers must strive to direct their promotional efforts to appeal to a global customer base. Analyzing the Cultural Diversity of Consumers in the Global Marketplace explores the strategies associated with promoting products and services to a culturally-diverse target market. Providing innovative solutions for global brands, this publication is ideally designed for use by marketing professionals, executives, students, as well as researchers.

Because American consumers transmigrate between social identities in expressing their values and affiliations, marketers must apply transcultural marketing methods and offer a cultural values proposition to build long-term customer relationships. This unique book weaves these topics into profiles of 9 influential American subcultures currently shaping their members' marketplace choices.

In this signal work of history, Bancroft Prize winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lizabeth Cohen shows how the pursuit of prosperity after World War II fueled our pervasive consumer mentality and transformed American life. Trumpeted as a means to promote the general welfare, mass consumption quickly outgrew its economic objectives and became synonymous with patriotism, social equality, and the American Dream. Material goods came to embody the promise of America, and the power of consumers to purchase everything from vacuum cleaners to convertibles gave rise to the power of citizens to purchase political influence and effect social change. Yet despite undeniable successes and unprecedented affluence, mass consumption also fostered economic inequality and the fracturing of society along gender, class, and racial lines. In charting the complex legacy of our “Consumers’ Republic” Lizabeth Cohen has written a bold, encompassing, and profoundly influential book.

As populations become increasingly mobile and production is globalized, every country and region in the world is becoming multicultural in social composition. Such multicultural market environments call for new marketing concepts and methodologies as well as empirical research into the implications of multicultural diversity for marketers. Multiculturalism also has significant implications for inter-organizational relations in the context of international marketing. These issues are also addressed here. In addition the book deals with multicultural marketing issues at various geographical levels - national, regional and global. With original coverage and an integrated perspective this book provides an essential overview of multicultural marketing.