I know everybody and their mother is putting out their analysis of the U.S. Census figures these days, particularly as they relate to the Hispanic population. However this article is definitely worth your time, as it tackles some pretty big issues and implications, both in the near-term and in the future (a few generations out).

In full disclosure, I was interviewed for the article (my take on the implications for business and marketing is included) and Wharton is my alma mater.

First, some general impressions and takeaways from the conference:
- It’s amazing how many people either make a living from blogging and twitting or use social media as their primary marketing tool
- The real estate industry is way ahead of other small business industries when it comes to using social media to grow their businesses
- There is an entire “sub-culture” of bloggers / twitterers complete with celebrities and household names I had never heard of!
- There were a lot of brands and media companies fully taking advantage of this “sub-culture” to grow their business – including FatBurger, the U.S. Army, and Bud Light.

Now, a couple of thoughts regarding multicultural blogging and social media. As I mentioned, I moderated a panel discussing the role of multicultural bloggers in the social media world and their influence on multicultural marketing in specific. First of all, there were some very interesting insights that emerged from our panelists regarding their respective communities. Our discussion was much more about how Hispanic, African-American, Asian and GLBT communities are participating in the social dialogue and how their voices differ from the general market – as opposed to whether they are even present.

The attendees were heavily engaged, bringing up some complicated questions ranging from how social media can reach low income, urban communities to some of the negative “race” conversations taking place on Twitter. One attendees even asked about how social media could be used to reduce racial tensions and improve multicultural relations. The broad dialogue also included the publisher of a newspaper trying to understand how to attract Latina readers and Gay bloggers concerned about being censored by conservative Christian social bookmarkers.

Probably the biggest takeaway came after our multicultural panel discussion when I actually took a look around and paid attention to the people who were attending BlogWorld. I would say that 30-40% of the attendees were either Hispanic, African-American, or Asian, not to mention people from all over the world. BlogWorld was a sea of multicultural and international bloggers, twitterers, marketers and voices. I wonder if the organizers realize that the blogosphere is already multicultural.

As a quick update, Project MC has launched a beta network on Ning that you can join at http://projectmc.ning.com/. I joined today, and it appears that the network is still being tested. Other than the Ning beta site, I have not heard or read anything else about Project MC.

Hopefully the group gets off the ground, because I think their mission is relevant considering the state of multicultural advertising. No matter where you come down on the various debates swirling around multicultural advertising, no one can argue that the industry is not rapidly changing. A healthy internal debate and a chorus of voices from the leaders of African-American, Hispanic and Asian agencies are critical at this moment.

In terms of what I can ascertain about Project MC, there are some things I definitely like. Most importantly, I am encouraged to see African-American, Hispanic and Asian shops working together. There is truth in the old saying that there is strength in numbers. Not only do we have a louder voice when we join together, but we can take advantage of the diversity we so often promote – we can learn from our diverse experiences – both successes and failures. Beside the collective power of joining together, I think Muse and his colleagues are going about this project the right way by starting with a social media platform.

However, there are a few issues that I would like to see Project MC address.

First, what is the goal of Project MC? I feel the group needs a clearer, more defined, and ideally quantifiable goal than just “define the importance of [multicultural] agencies.” Do they expect to see ad spend increase by x% by 20xx, etc.?

Also, why aren’t prominent multicultural advertisers more actively involved, particularly on the groundfloor of Project MC? According to the Adweek story the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) is being reached out to, but I would like to see some multicultural leaders within ANA involved in launching the group. It is critically important to make the case for multicultural advertising, particularly with examples of ROI and business success that only advertisers can make.

Finally, Project MC needs a broader, more deliberate social media strategy. They are on the right path with the Ning social network, but they can’t expect the entire initiative to live on Ning. How do they plan on leveraging popular social platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and social bookmarking sites that are already part of digital lives of the folks they’re trying to reach?

Project MC holds a lot of promise. I sincerely hope they get traction. There are some importance challenges ahead, not the least of which is addresses their biggest concern – turning dialogue into action!

Some of Matthew’s key insights include:
- Teens don’t listen to the radio or read newspapers
- Almost all teenagers have access to the Internet, where they are heavy Facebook users and searchers (and they hate display ads)
- Music is a key part of their lives – they are always listening to it, but don’t like paying for it.
- All teens have mobile phones – which function more like a stereo and text-message machine to them

Shortly before hearing about Matthew’s manifesto, I had recently read an article on how to reach multicultural youth by Tru Pettigrew on Fast Company. According to Pettigrew, multicultural youth “online and mobile consumption and spending habits are outdistancing the general market … almost 2-to-1.”

I found an interesting intersection between Pettigrew’s comments and Matthew Robson’s report on the issue of “access and benefits.” According to Pettigrew access and benefits are the most important drivers of success in marketing to and driving brand engagement among multicultural youth. According to Robson, the key driver to teenage behavior is their lack of money. They want access to movies and music, but will go out of their way to find it cheap or for free. Any brand that is able to give them access to the content they demand cost-effectively, or free, will win their hearts.

One thing is for sure – digital technology is the great equalizer. It gives teens access to the content and information they desire on their terms, whether they are multicultural or not.

I applaud Burrell for the hire and expansion into digital. A lot of Af-Am ad agencies pay digital a lot of lip service, but very few have actually invested in it. Burrell is bringing in a smart ad executive (I know, I spoke on a panel with Don) because they see the writing on the wall. Times are a changing, and multicultural ad shops are not immune!

Under the veil of “All marketing essentially is multicultural” this article lays out a vision for integrated multicultural marketing – i.e. the general market agency will be driving the programs, which will be part of / fully integrated into overall media plans, etc.

Am I over-reacting here?

As I was reading this piece, I was particularly happy to see someone finally address the opportunity / missed opportunity to take on digital by multicultural shops. According to the author “There are battlegrounds where the multicultural shops could be gaining ground – experiential and digital. These fields require a heavy expertise and a “boots on the ground” sort of approach. However, no one seems to making a motion to own these two spaces.”

AMEN!

While I have only casually been following the controversy, and arguably less affected by it’s ramifications (most of our media and creative work is digitally-focused), today’s decision by Arbitron to roll-out PPM early caught my attention.

Why? Well, in reading one of the articles on Arbitron’s point-of-view I noticed that Arbitron is claiming that the new PPM measurement system will show across-the-board reductions in radio listenership numbers (including mainstream, Urban, and Spanish-language stations). While I understand that the big issue is how much more PPM will affect Urban and Spanish-language stations and their ratings vs. their general market counterparts (and I have no clue what the answer to that question is), an ancillary result of this new system might be a boost to online advertising.

What with radio rating numbers going down across the board, and now a new system sharpening that decline, added to increasing Internet penetration and time spent figures, you would think that PPM’s rollout would accelerate ad budgets shifting to online (from radio in this case). We’ll see what happens.

CNN just ran a story on the data – which is very compelling.

Leading the way is Los Angeles County, home to the 2nd largest city in the U.S. – the City of Los Angeles. As of 2007, almost 71% of LA County’s residents are minorities, lead by 4.7 million Hispanics and 1 million African-Americans.

It’s also interesting to note that 3 New York boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx – have more than 1 million minority residents each.

For anyone that follows my posts on TM, you know I have been talking about this seismic demographic shift, and that it is creating huge opportunities and threats to the advertising business as we currently know it. Multicultural advertising is no longer a niche strategy – it is quickly becoming the mass market. Hispanic, African American, Asian and other emerging market agencies know this, and general market shops see the writing the wall. It’s only a matter of time before big ad spenders start to rethink who their lead agency should be.

I just finished the day at the Urban Media Symposium at the University of Texas. Despite some gloomy weather in Austin, it was a terrific event.

The panelists were generally very knowledgeable and all seemed excited to be there, which was nice. Nobody was falling asleep at the microphone. They also had a good mix of academic and industry types, and none of the presentations seemed to be just one long product pitch from a sponsor, which you get at a lot of these conferences. I hope that comes from good planning and not from a lack of sponsors.

One panel got into a discussion of the job market at multicultural agencies. The general message was that agencies are having a tough time finding smart, diverse candidates and that it’s a really good time to fit that description. The one student on the panel had just chosen an offer at a big general market agency over one from a smaller multicultural shop in order to get the big name on the resume and not get pigeonholed early. So it seems the niche shops will have to keep raiding the big guys for good talent.

So congratulations to the Austin Ad Federation and UT for the first of hopefully a long line of great events.