It's a Mass Market No More

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Spicy Mexican foods normally stimulate the taste buds, seldom controversy. But a television advertisement for Taco Bell's saucy new Wild Burrito caused more excitement in the African-American community than the company intended. The spot featured dark-skinned island "natives" with painted faces, dancing in loincloths, flames belching from their mouths. African Americans immediately attacked Taco Bell's attempt at multicultural advertising. Oakland city council official Fred Ferguson described it as "plain and simple racist." The ad was withdrawn.

That kind of faux pas was unacknowledged in the days of Ozzie and Harriet and flesh-colored Band-Aids, when one advertising message fit all customers. But like the homogenized, '50s-style households for which they were created, the tools of mass marketing are headed for the Trashmaster of history. Waves of immigrants from Asia, Latin America and Africa, added to an already growing minority population, are radically reshaping the face and buying habits of the "typical" American consumer.

Ethnic-minority shoppers, predominantly African Americans, Hispanics and Asians, spent $600 billion on everything from toothpaste to shoes to cars last year, up 18% since 1990. By the year 2000, minorities may account for 30% of the economy. Major corporations like Pepsico, K Mart and J.C. Penney are going all out to win over free-spending ethnic consumers, recruiting minority marketing experts who speak each group's language and know their customs. "This is the era of ethnic marketing," says Gary Berman, president of Market Segment Research, a consumer specialist in Coral Gables, Florida. "Mass marketing worked when America was a cultural melting pot. But now you need a different message to suit the taste of each group."

Corporate America is catching up with the times and in some ways is getting ahead of the multicultural debate that still rages in some corners of society. Almost half of all Fortune 1000 companies have some type of ethnic-marketing campaign. That contrasts with only a handful in 1980. Last year companies spent $500 million on ads and promotions to reach minority consumers, including bilingual billboards, sweepstakes and parades. Expenditures on advertising and promotional campaigns aimed at ethnic groups, which amounted to only $250 million five years ago, are expected to top $900 million by 2000.

Procter & Gamble, which spends an estimated 5% of its total advertising budget of $2 billion on ethnic-oriented ads, reaches Spanish speakers through shows like Hablando, a popular half-hour morning program. AT&T, which sponsors Chinese Dragon Boat Festival races and Cuban folk festivals, runs broadcast and print ads in the U.S. alone that reach 30 different cultures in 20 different languages, including Korean, Tagalog and the West African dialect + Twi. Says Jacqueline Morey, director of multicultural marketing at AT&T: "Marketing today is part anthropology."