Live from What Teens Want: Reaching Multi Cultural Teens

Reaching teens with marketing messages isn’t easy.

But when it comes to targeting a multicultural audience, marketers should approach with caution and be armed with knowledge. While multicultural teens are passionate about their heritage and ethnicity, they define diversity in different ways. It transcends fashion, food, culture and geographic origin.

As such, brands, too, need to market to multicultural teens differently.

“Teens don’t want to explicitly be targeted by their ethnicity,” Tru Pettigrew, president, Alloy Access, the urban and multicultural division of Alloy Media & Marketing, said. “They really want you to speak to their lifestyle and differences.”

There are nearly 40 million teens aged 12 to 19 in the U.S. with 800,000 new teens joining the group every month, according to Pettigrew. Of that, 65% of are white, 16% are Hispanic, 16% are black and 1% are Asian.

How can brands connect with the group? “Don’t single them out,” Pettigrew said. “Show you understand their common interests.”

For Hispanic teens, their passions include music, food and dancing, while black teens are focused on music, soul food and fashion. Asians, however, are driven more by technology, high-end fashion, food and education.

“Keep up with their passions and track them as they change,” Pettigrew said.

Brands also need to gain teens’ trust to continue a dialogue. For example, marketers can find relevancy and opportunity supporting locally and celebrated cultural milestones and holidays, such as Chinese New Year.

Pettigrew offered the following tips for brands to build relationships:

* Show a good image. Speak to teens in the right language and in the right tone.
* Be real, be true, be honest.
* Keep your marketing message fresh. Know what and who influences teens.
* Commit to quality. Kids want products that are high quality.
* Take into account cultural pride.

The two-day What Teens Want Conference, held at the Grand Hyatt in New York, ended yesterday.