Cable Makes Multicultural Marketing A Priority.

Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing released the CTAM Cable Multicultural Marketing Study, showing that cable professionals are reaching out to ethnic segments with increasing success and developing new ways to overcome the challenges of targeted marketing.

The Walter Kaitz Foundation awarded a grant to CTAM, which commissioned The VBS Group, Inc. to complete the study. The study documents the state of multicultural marketing and is based on the results of 61 in-depth telephone interviews with senior industry executives who are implementing multicultural marketing programs. The sample consists of eight of the largest multi-system operators, 20 cable program networks, and 33 cable systems, regions or divisions representing ethnically-significant markets.

Research highlights include:

Budget and Resources Devoted to Multicultural Marketing

More than half of the participants (53%) report their 2002 multicultural marketing budget is larger than 2001; two thirds (67%) believe that their multicultural marketing budget will grow again in 2003.

When applying these budget dollars, the majority use specialized multicultural ad agencies (74%) to assist with their multicultural marketing efforts.

Marketing Strategy and Implementation

More than half (57%) of the companies represented in the study have multicultural marketing plans or objectives. This is more common among systems (70%) than with programmers (50%) or MSOs (25%). Most of these plans are highly targeted and local.

Fifty-nine percent of the cable companies represented and 40% of program networks have a dedicated marketing database to identify or track ethnic segments.

Dedicated Staff

Of the study participants, 75% of MSOs, 49% of cable systems, and 44% of program networks (other than the ethnic-targeted networks) employ someone who is specifically responsible for multicultural marketing.

Fifty-nine percent of the sample has additional staff members who work on multicultural marketing (in most cases, along with other responsibilities). Thirty percent of these cable staffers have the same ethnic background as the target group (primarily Hispanic), and nearly 30% speak the language of the group.

Language

Nearly all of the cable systems in the sample (94%) said that they provided dedicated customer service representatives with in-language abilities.

Twenty percent of participants reported that their Web sites had language options, mostly in Spanish.

Overall, the study substantiates cable’s involvement in marketing to diverse audiences. Cable company and program network executives differ on the biggest barriers to more extensive multicultural marketing, and cite challenges, such as insufficient budgets and a need to retool operations to get the job done right.

“I’m encouraged that all facets of the cable industry are increasingly embracing multicultural consumers, as documented in the Kaitz-funded study,” said Art Torres, President of the Walter Kaitz Foundation. “The industry is successfully fulfilling two important diversity goals: strengthening our ties to diverse communities and enhancing our supplier diversity program,” Torres said.

The Walter Kaitz Foundation awarded CTAM with a grant in the amount of $35,000 to conduct the research, with the goal of helping marketers build their skills and achieve greater success in multicultural marketing.

In addition, the Walter Kaitz Foundation (www.walterkaitz.org) and CTAM (www.ctam.com) have posted listings of Multicultural Marketing Agency Resources, developed with input from the participants of the study, the CTAM Multicultural Marketing Committee and the Walter Kaitz Foundation, to illustrate diverse resources available to the industry.

The Kaitz Foundation and CTAM are exploring multicultural marketing events during the CTAM Summit in July. Specific details will be made available at a later date.

Data collection was executed by The VBS Group, Inc. The study is based on the results of 61 in-depth telephone interviews with senior cable industry personnel involved with multicultural marketing. A specific breakdown of the pool is detailed in the study. Each participant was encouraged to add opinions and comments that provided a fuller, more qualitative understanding of the various decision-making processes. The interviews were conducted between June 25, 2002 and August 2, 2002. CTAM was identified as a sponsor of the study within the questionnaire.

To view report CLICK below:

http://www.ctam.com/ctam/research/multiculturalstudy-toc.htm