Sunday, November 07, 2010

8137: New Media Gets Old Miniscule Spending.


Advertising Age reported that a new survey from the Association of National Advertisers showed advertisers targeting minority audiences are increasing spending in new media like mobile marketing and online video. Technically, most advertisers indicated they are shifting dollars from their overall multicultural marketing budgets to new media. This point is significant for a few key reasons. First, the typical multicultural marketing budget is substandard, especially when compared to the gobs of money advertisers dedicate to the efforts of their White agencies. As the Ad Age story admitted, “Though marketers allocated an average of 6.6% of their 2010 multicultural media budgets to new media, many are still spending almost nothing.” Second, another recent ANA survey revealed the majority of the organization’s members do not engage multicultural marketing specialists at all. So why does increasing the miniscule share of substandard budgets among a teeny-tiny number of enlightened advertisers even warrant publishing a story?

Multicultural Marketing Dollars Flowing to Mobile, Online Video

Although Budgets Are Still Small, Bigger Share of Spending Going to New-Media Platforms Than in General Market

By Laurel Wentz

NEW YORK -- Marketers are more likely to use mobile marketing, online video and gaming when targeting multicultural consumers than in the general market, according to a new survey by the Association of National Advertisers. But don’t take that as a huge boon for new media in the segment: Though marketers allocated an average of 6.6% of their 2010 multicultural media budgets to new media, many are still spending almost nothing. Twenty-five percent of respondents said they are dedicating less than 1% of their multicultural budgets to new media this year, and 32% are spending 5% or less.

The most excitement seems to center around mobile marketing; 59% of respondents said they use or plan to use mobile marketing to reach multicultural customers, compared with 32% of respondents who were asked the same question about the general market in an earlier ANA poll.

Some 55% of multicultural marketers said they use or plan to use online video, compared to 50% in the general market. And 20% said they are considering trying Foursquare next year.

Among the other findings from the online survey of 90 multicultural marketers’ use of media that will be discussed at this week’s annual ANA Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference: Marketers are less likely to target multicultural consumers using webinars (25%, compared to 65% in the general market), e-mail marketing (70%, compared to 94% in the general market) and organic search engine optimization (64%, compared to 86% in the general market).

Where are the dollars coming from? Marketers are tapping multiple budgets to invest in new media. Most are simply shifting money from elsewhere in the multicultural budget — 41% from the media budget and 18% from other areas like direct marketing and events. Even more are moving dollars from their general-market budget — 30% from the media budget and 33% from areas like promotion and events. Just 29% said they found incremental dollars for multicultural new media.

Of the new-media areas they’ve invested in, marketers rated search engines—both paid keyword marketing and organic search engine optimization as the most effective, followed by their own websites and video-on-demand. They were least enthusiastic about Twitter, blogs and podcasts.

Although 92% of respondents said they use their own websites as part of their multicultural marketing efforts, only 63% said they have a Spanish-language website, and 18% have an Asian-language website to reach Asian customers. One-third of the marketers surveyed said they didn’t have a U.S. website in a language other than English.

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