Think Multicultural

What’s the difference techie people and ad people? Attitude.

This article in Adweek describes how online video watched on computers is going to save the video ad space from DVR ad skipping on TV.

Seriously?

For half a century or more, TV has been the ultimate one-way medium, in which the programmer controlled not only the message, but the delivery time and channel. This one-way conversation was interrupted by DVR, which is simply a computer that is attached to a TV, giving the viewer the ability to control at least the delivery time and making the channel irrelevant.

On the other hand, computers have put power in the hands of the masses. From Napster to YouTube to MySpace to Facebook to RSS readers, computers have enabled people to control their content. Computers and the web are all about giving people the power to control their media and the conversation.

The idea that moving video onto computers will enable advertisers to prevent commercial skipping is ludicrous. Five days after the iPhone was released someone had unlocked it so that it worked on networks other than AT&T. Although the record labels were able to take down Napster, music and movies are still free on sites like Kazaa, Limewire, and the various BitTorrent-style sites.

Advertisers are not going to win a war against techies and consumers to force them to consume media when/how the advertiser wants. The future for advertisers is not using technology to force-feed commercials consumers. The future for advertisers is in being smart and clever and relevant – reaching consumers in non-obtrusive yet effective ways that aren’t so in-your-face that some 15 year old geek is going to destroy your technology and business model between WoW sessions.

If you want to see where the future of multicultural media planning is, take a look at the general market. Multicultural advertising trends trail the general market by a little, but that gap is narrowing.

This post make very clear that if you want to get a job as a media planner in the general market, you had better have some digital skills and experience:

Sent out your resume lately in response to ads for “Media Supervisor” or “Associate Media Director”? A week later, “Mr. Recruiter You’d Been Waiting On” calls, and simply wants to know one thing: “How much digital experience do you have?”

There was a report a couple of weeks ago from Creative Artists Agency and The Intelligence Group that evaluated how companies and brands connected with young Hispanics. The report said that McDonald’s, Pepsi, Univision, and Rocawear are among the brands that do the best job of reaching the Gen Y Hispanics.

One of the more interesting parts of the report was that a majority of the Gen Y who responded to the survey identified themselves as “Hispanic” (56%) rather than “Latino” (19%) or “American” (somethingless%). You sometimes hear Hispanic-Latino-Americans object to the word “Hispanic” because it was created by the US government (the Nixon administration, no less), but apparently with the passage of time, attitudes change. With this demo, “Hispanic” seems to be just fine.

Further, 58% of the respondents to the survey said they have a strong connection with Latino culture. So apparently the erasing of Hispanic identity as younger generations acculturate isn’t too widespread.

I do have one problem with the report, which is this quote: “It’s a mix-and-match lifestyle . . . It’s the same as the person who orders a hamburger, but with jalapeños.” That quote describes anybody from a border state - Hispanic, white, or otherwise. My dad is 65 and white, and that describes him. He’s no Gen Y Hispanic.

Be careful how you describe your markets.