Happy birthday, America: While I don’t have a gift for you today, I thought I’d mention how nice a name “America” is. Given that you were named for navigator Amerigo Vespucci, it sounds a lot better than “Vespucciland,” which I understand was the runner-up choice.
Speaking of Amerigo Vespucci, I’m reminded of another Italian, a fellow named Columbus. Columbus managed to discover you in one shot, America. All right, he was looking for India, but we won’t hold that against him. My point is that, backed with Spanish money, he found you on the first try.
In contrast, the direct marketing industry – with a few notable exceptions – has been trying to discover the Latino market for years. Maybe we could get around to finding it, and marketing to it, one of these days?
Not that we haven’t been looking. Since the late 1990s, I’ve read a lot of articles on the value of multicultural marketing. Here is a list – and it’s not comprehensive, by any means -- of stories Direct and two of its sister publications, Catalog Age and American Demographics, have run since 1998:
Speaking Their Language
Recasting the Melting Pot
Los Ninos Go Shopping
Multicultural Markets: Food for Thought
Sports Marketing: Putting the ‘World’ in the World Series
Micro Melting Pots
Hola, You’ve Got Mail!
Diversity Inc.
Hispanic Population Growing in Size and Wealth
Multicultural and Multichannel
Targeting Hispanics? Use the Lingua Franca
USPS Hosts Direct Mail Seminars for Multicultural Marketers
And, most recently:
The Overlooked Hispanic Market
Actually, it’s not quite true that direct marketers haven’t discovered the Latino market. One segment has done a fine job of discovering it: the credit card industry. What this demonstrates is that we’ve gotten the means to make purchases into this market’s hands, and are still letting them spend in retail stores.
Ah, America, it’s probably just as well that direct marketers haven’t discovered your multicultural markets yet. There’s a nice little cottage industry in writing about this undiscovered audience. If the industry ever finds it, I’ll be out of a job.
Well, happy birthday again, America. Hope you enjoyed the fireworks. See you in 52 weeks.
To respond to the opinions in this column, please contact rlevey@primediabusiness.com
