IPA highlights multicultural marketing opportunities
A new report has been released by the IPA to provide the advertising industry with an update on the rapidly expanding multi-cultural landscape of the UK; both as a potential employer and a market place.
‘Marketing opportunities for advertisers and agencies in multi-cultural Britain’ highlights that multi-cultural communities will become increasingly visible and more influential as they rise up the business and corporate ladder and become budget holders. The report adds that targeting diverse groups should be on the agenda of every UK brand and marketer, or they will risk losing out on a potentially lucrative new market. It also points out that responding to the needs of a diverse, culturally-rich group will require understanding of the cultural, religious, identity and ethnicity issues embedded within these groups.
Finally, as migration into the UK rises, it is predicted that ethnic media outlets will continue to thrive because of the lack of relevant content offered by mainstream media. “The UK is now truly a multicultural country, and will continue to flourish in the face of diversity. If we don’t recognise that people are different we are not going to get anywhere,” said Founder and CEO of Media Reach, Saad Saraf. “Business is about engaging people and more so in the current financial downturn. We’ve got too many products and too few customers. When people have a choice and prices are falling, that’s when marketing mavericks look at segmentation and precision marketing.” He added, “The industry needs to quicken its pace to catch up with the changing face of the new society, or risk getting left behind. Not only do we need to accept it, we need to understand and embrace it.”
The report by the IPA’s Ethnic Diversity Group also provides an overview of population data as well as an outline of Black, Asian and Eastern European media and explanations of the complexities of marketing to different cultures. It includes a foreword from Trevor Robinson, and extensive chapter from Saad Saraf, Founder and CEO of Media Reach and Sanjay Shabi of CultureCom.
