America is the melting pot of the world because there are so many different ethnicities. That is why it makes America so unique and such a great place. But in case you have noticed, America is no longer a melting pot, It is a salad bowl, brimming with a polyglot, multi-hued potpourri of people who mix but do not blend (Clary, 1989). That is one bad thing about America being so diverse. The ethnic diversity of the United States makes it critical to develop ad strategies for specific target segments, which entails investigating how consumers differ in their various purchase decision-making patterns (Kang, 2001).
There are three major ethnic minority consumer groups in the United States and they are African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians (Kang, 2001). African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians are expected to account for 30% of the nations population by 2005 (MMR, 2001). Blacks, Hispanics, Asians account for 79 million out of 281 million Americans (Business Week, 2001). Collectively they represent an estimated $1 trillion in annual spending power Business Week, 2001). This has had companies trying to come up with new strategies to target these ethnic groups. Advertisers have to put their money where there mouth is (Melillo, 2000). Advertisers and their agencies have supported the traditional media buying paradigm for the last 25 years (Melillo, 2000). Change is inevitable and not as painful as it may see.
A host of barriers will block any stampede into multicultural marketing. First, there's an appalling lack of data on buying habits among minorities, making hard for marketers to make good decisions. Then there is the economic slowdown. Any marketing effort deemed discretionary is in danger of outright cancellation these days. But the biggest obstacle may originate inside executive suites, where many decisions makers are hobbled by a range of tenaciously held misconceptions about minorities buying power and brand loyalty (Business Week, 2001).
