La gran apertura comienza adentro.
Those words – the grand opening starts inside – headline a Spanish-led booklet Target recently sent to Denver residents trumpeting Sunday’s grand opening of its Edgewater store.
It is one example of companies in Colorado and across the country bolstering their marketing and customer-service efforts toward different cultures and races.
Comcast and DirecTV send direct-mail marketing materials entirely in languages other than English.
Wells Fargo specifically hires Vietnamese- speaking workers at a store in Bear Valley and has Russian-language materials at a branch in southeast Denver. Three years ago, the banking giant upgraded all of its ATMs to other languages such as Mandarin.
“All of the multicultural markets are really a key part of the business strategy for Wells,” said Jim Snow, the bank’s director of strategic planning in Colorado. “So much of the growth, both currently and projected to come in the future, is really from the diverse markets.”
Indeed, many companies say 2000 census figures spurred their growing efforts. Those numbers showed minorities represented 31 percent of the nation’s population, up from 24 percent in 1990. The Census Bureau projects that minority groups will represent 49.9 percent of the population by 2050.
“When the 2000 census came out, it was kind of like the first ‘Aha!’ moment for a lot of companies,” said Natalie Rouse, who joined Comcast in 2000 as the company’s director of national ethnic marketing.
Three years ago, the cable giant created a position specifically dedicated to multicultural marketing in Colorado.
In Denver, minorities are the majority, representing 50.01 percent of the population.
“The numbers are growing at such a rapid rate of these underserved ethnic communities that it just makes good business sense … to make sure we have plans in place to be able to reach out to them,” Rouse said.
Increased numbers bring greater buying power.
The national spending power in 2007 for Latinos is estimated at $862 billion, up from $489 billion in 2000, according to a study by the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia. The estimated buying power for Asians is $459 billion, up from $269 billion in 2000.
The study defines buying power as disposable personal income.
Despite the growth in numbers, some firms are still out of the game in terms of marketing to certain minority groups.
“In the Asian market, packaged- goods marketers are largely inactive, whether it’s food, whether it’s over- the-counter pharmaceuticals, whether it’s household products,” said Saul Gitlin, executive vice president of strategic services for Kang & Lee Advertising, an Asian-American marketing agency. “By contrast, the financial-services industry has been growing in leaps and bounds in terms of targeting Asians.”
Wells Fargo runs Vietnamese-language advertisements in Vietnamese newspapers in the Denver area. The company, however, no longer sends direct mail written solely in a language other than English, unless the customer requests it.
“There has been an occasional effort within the organization for (foreign-language-only) marketing,” Snow said. “We’ve gotten some negative feedback.”
Comcast’s Rouse said she has found that, in general, Filipinos prefer materials in English, while many Chinese welcome information in Mandarin or Cantonese.
Denver-based Qwest said it is also bolstering its multicultural marketing. Though the company’s direct- mail campaigns are run only in English and Spanish, it is considering marketing in other languages.
“We’re trying to be more inclusive as a company. Not just from an advertising and marketing standpoint but from an events perspective as well,” said Hector Placencia, director of multicultural marketing for Qwest, which sponsors a number of ethnic events.
Telecommunications companies are among the most active in marketing to Latinos, said Linda De Jesús- Cutler, president of The Bravo Group, a Latino marketing firm.
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com
