California’s ethnic media—encompassing television, radio, newspapers and the Web—reach 84 percent of the state’s African-American, Latino and Asian-American consumers. That’s a prime finding of a study conducted by Miami research firm Bendixen & Associates for New California Media, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group consisting of broadcast, print and online ethnic media organizations.
The research entailed interviews with a cross-section of California’s ethnic population represented in a sampling of 2,000 people. Interviews were done in a dozen different languages, including English, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Cambodian, Laotian and Hindi. Overall, more than half of the respondents said they prefer ethnic media to their general-market, English-language counterparts.
Funded by such groups as the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the study noted that about 40 percent of ethnic consumers polled said they generally paid more attention to ads in the ethnic media than in general-market outlets. By contrast, 33 percent gave more weight to general-market media as compared to ethnic media. Nineteen percent said they valued ethnic and general-market media equally. And the remaining eight percent had no opinion.
Sixty-six percent of respondents concurred that companies advertising in ethnic media "seem to understand my needs and desires better than other companies." According to the survey, some 63 percent agreed they are "more likely to buy a product or service advertised" in ethnic media.
Sergio Bendixen, president of Bendixen & Associates, was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle as saying that the study results indicate that the "old melting pot model used to understand the experience of waves of immigrants in the early 20th century may not be as valid in the new century." He observed that the proliferation of ethnic media—and the fact that so many people rely on those media—shows that the pace of assimilation may have decreased.
The New California Media-commissioned
survey is billed as being at least the third significant study in the last three years to point to the increased power of ethnic media. Some advertisers are taking notice. But in the big picture, despite their growing influence, ethnic media are often overlooked by ad agencies and their clients. Estimates are that ethnic media receive less than two percent of all advertising dollars spent in the U.S.
Part of the reason for this lag in ad dollar commitments is explained in part by the New California Media survey, which found that more than half of the respondents had annual incomes of less than $40,000 and were renters. These demographics diminish interest on the part of advertisers in certain product categories.
Nonetheless, New California Media contends that ethnic media outlets are largely undervalued, and that it behooves the advertising community to pay greater attention to them. Collectively, the minority communities in California comprise the majority of the state’s population.
New California Media president Sandy Close noted that the survey is an initial step in changing advertiser attitudes and perceptions. The Chronicle quoted Close as saying: "This is media whose emergence I regard as the most important force in journalism since the alternative media in the 1960s … and now the task is to partner, to collaborate, to encompass—with those media that have an umbilical cord to their audiences."
