From: hassan@cup.portal.com (hassan monu alam)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Targeting Asians
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 23:22:52 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

Targeting Asians

Agencies in US tailor messages to new immigrants

By Jonathan Burton in New York

Mom is young and perky; Dad is confident and employed, the 
kids are clean and well-behaved. What's behind their success? 
Family values, of course, and their toothpaste: Colgate. This 
happy Mom, promises a recent advertisement, knows that 
squeezing Colgate on your toothbrush "gives your family a 
smile that lasts a lifetime." Such is the essential American 
Dream, idealised, shaped and stereotyped for decades by US 
corporate advertisers. Only nowadays these wholesome 
messages better illustrate the Asian-American Dream.

This particular Colgate ad is aimed at Chinese, not mainstream, 
Americans, many of whom are recent immigrants. They are 
unschooled in the cultural nuances of their new home, and 
unsure of what behaviour is proper. In this case they are being 
told that in Asian America, success equals a financially secure, 
assimilated, upper-middle-class family--and that Colgate can 
help. "The undertone of it is that we have upward mobility," 
says Joseph Lam, a founder of New York agency L3 
Advertising Inc., which created the Colgate ad. "We are 
progressive; we want to achieve more."

Like most images aimed at Asian Americans, Colgate's 
approach assumes that much of the group is first-generation and 
conservative in their social and political views, and strongly 
motivated by a desire for prosperity. They are status-conscious, 
but not loyal to any one brand. The Asian American population 
in the US nearly doubled over the last decade, to 7.3 million 
from 3.5 million, with more than 200,000 arrivals in 1991 alone. 
Most display the classic immigrant mentality: a desire to meld 
with their adopted society, and the need to remember what they 
left behind.

"No matter how much they admire Western civilization in their 
homeland, once they go abroad for good they tend to value 
their own culture and heritage more," observes Lam, himself a 
Hongkong native who settled in the US two decades ago.

What is Asian America? Corporate advertisers and their 
agencies
would be mistaken to envision a solid bloc of homogeneous 
consumers. Asian America radiates anything but harmony--it is a 
minefield of competing and sometimes antagonistic cultures that 
can quickly derail an unsuspecting marketer. Advertisements 
that would appeal to Japanese may offend Koreans; Filipinos 
are not likely to relate to images that address Vietnamese. Even 
seemingly unified socities like Chinese belong to an expansive 
Diaspora that encompasses mainland China, Taiwan, 
Hongkong, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Advertisers have been hoping to ease the confusion by 
Identifying common denominators to which Asian Americans 
will respond. The most widely used are subtle messages that 
emphasise family, tradition and cooperation. To help streamline 
the effort, some companies, including Colgate,Palmolive, 
AT&T, Anheuser-Busch and Bank of America have sidestepped 
their usual Madison Avenue agencies and have hired small 
Asian-American owned shops that promise pioneering inroads 
to the Asian community.

In its television commercials, AT&T, the long-distance 
telephone giant, directly asks mainstream America to "come 
back" from competing services. But in carefully worded 
Japanese, it politely informs recent arrivals from Japan that "we 
are waiting for your call." A print campaign for New York-
based Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. plays to Asians' deep 
sense of paternal responsibility by
showing a Chinese baby in its father's arms. "You protect your 
children," the copy reads, "but who protects you?"

Ethnic influence in popular American advertising can be traced 
back a generation, when clubby, white-bread Madison Avenue 
was shaken by creative types from primarily Italian, Irish and 
Jewish backgrounds. These young upstarts, more at home on 
inner-city streets than suburban lawns, ignited a cultural 
revolution within the industry. Often using humour as a battering 
ram, they pushed their immigrant world into average American 
living rooms.

The ads that Asian-American agencies have been developing 
are not about to upset the status quo or burst into prime time. 
They are straightforward pitches to targeted Asian groups, 
produced in the appropriate language and featuring ethnically 
correct actors. Models always appear well-to-do and 
professional, doing business or entertaining in pleasant, affluent 
surroundings. The set of one AT&T television spot-the living 
room of an upscale Chinese immigrant family--deliberately 
mixes Western and Asian styles, such as an ornate Chinese vase 
placed near an easy chair.

Whenever possible, whether for television or print, and no 
matter the product ads to Asian Americans emphasise family. 
Says Connie Chan, an account executive with Time Advertising 
in San Francisco, which has created Asian-market campaigns 
for Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser beer and San Francisco-based 
Bank of America: "Asians are family oriented. They love their 
family so they buy the product."

The concept of selling a product on a pledge to improve family 
health and lifestyle is an age-old advertising saw. But there is a 
striking difference in how family is portrayed to Asian America 
versus the national mainstream. Much of American advertising 
sees success reflected in the urban, the fast-paced and, above 
all, the independent individual. When families are shown 
together, they still maintain clearly separate agendas. In 
contrast, advertising to Asian Americans portrays the family as a 
commune, the focus of daily life.

Ads often include grandparents, in deference to the elderly's 
prominent position in Asian culture. Men and women in these 
commercials often assume traditional sex roles. The Colgate 
toothpaste ad, which addresses family health, speaks to 
mothers; the Metropolitan Life spot, focusing on finances, is 
aimed at fathers. Consider two commercials for Budweiser beer. 
One on television is a typical pitch to mainstream America, a 
splashy affair with bikini-clad women playing on a beach with 
handsome, tanned men. Drink Budweiser and you will be 
popular, attractive and fit, is the message. The other, a print 
campaign for Chinese Americans, makes a softer pitch, 
presenting the product as a social drink to enjoy with family and 
friends. There are no models and no surf. Its most provocative 
shot: a beer bottle and the slogan: "The King of Beers."

"Appealing to sex would be almost offensive," explains Betty 
Lee Sung, chair of the Asian Studies department at City College 
of New York. "Appealing to individualism would go against the 
grain." Accordingly, when Chinese brewer Tsingtao enlisted 
New York agency Lee Liu & Tong to develop a television 
campaign for Chinese Americans, partner Jennie Tong knew 
what script would work. "In American beer commercials, all 
you see are really young people," she says. "It's this active 
lifestyle, almost like the beer connects them all." Lee Liu & 
Tong's ad borrows judiciously from that theme, set around a 
swimming pool party at a suburban Chinese-American house. 
But there any similarity to the mainstream stops.

  In the ad, young actors celebrate with middle-aged couples, 
suggesting a friendly social gathering, not a raucous fraternity 
bash. "Who are the decision makers in the house?" asks Tong. 
"It's usually the mother, and you don't want a product that 
offends her sensibilities."

In years ahead, assimilation will likely erode many of these 
prejudices, and with it advertising for Asian Americans is 
certain to change dramatically. Commercials may begin to air in 
English, with a more "American" voice that seems comfortable 
and familiar. These ads will speak directly to younger 
immigrants and American-born Asian Americans, for whom Asia 
is fast becoming the distant homeland of their parents and 
grandparents; special, but ultimately foreign.
 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american