The New York Times has made its first attempt at targeting an ethnic market with a multimedia direct response campaign aimed at Chinese Americans in New York City. The subscription effort, begun earlier this year, includes DRTV spots in Mandarin and Cantonese. And last month, the paper sent 85,000 direct mail pieces to New York-area Chinese Americans.
If successful, the campaign will become the template for targeting other niches, and may be extended beyond the city for the paper’s national edition, says Alyse Myers, the Times’ vice president of promotion and marketing communications.
Designed by Asian-American marketing specialists Kang & Lee, New York, the campaign aims at two tiers: professionals and parents of pre-college children between the ages of 10 and 17.
“Culturally, there is an emphasis on education as a road to success,” Myers says.
Though the Times itself is only published in English, the direct mail piece has copy in both Chinese and English because parents may be more comfortable reading Chinese, Myers explains.
In addition, the mailing provides separate toll-free numbers for people speaking Mandarin and Cantonese (though they use the same characters in print, the dialects are spoken differently). Recipients also can subscribe on the Times’ Web site (www.nytimes.com), which is in English only.
The campaign started in February, when the Times distributed a Chinese folk art calendar during Lunar New Year celebrations. Many of the figures in the piece are holding copies of the Times.
This was followed by programs to increase the number of dealers in Chinatown, and to change the color of the vending machines from New York Times blue to the more culturally sensitive red.
The second phase, launched in April, consisted of DRTV spots and space ads emphasizing the theme of parents’ pride in seeing their children get ahead. The spots aired on local Chinese-language stations. The print ads appeared in local Chinese newspapers.
According to Myers, the creative was designed to complement the work done by the Times’ general agency, Bozell Worldwide.
Though she won’t release response rates, Myers says that the Times has added 25 dealers in Chinese-American neighborhoods, and that 60% of new subscribers in these areas have ordered home delivery for all seven days.
Approximately two-thirds of New York-area residents have English as a second language or are not European in background, she adds.
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