There is exciting growth potential for ethnic brand owners working with marketing and advertising agencies. The challenge is to take traditional ethnic minority brands marketed in these communities and develop a mainstream presence.
I was privileged to be invited last year to join a table hosted by one of our IPA member agencies, Di5 Global, at the World Food Awards at London’s Lancaster Hotel.
It turned out that founder and CEO Bala Iyer, for whom I play the role of IPA buddy, was part of the organising committee and managed the event communications and sponsorship. Over 500 people were present, more than 80% of them Asian. This meant that we were treated to the most exceptional curry dinner and Bollywood-style entertainment.
There was a smattering of French and British but we were definitely in the minority. I remember that one of my fellow guests, attending with his brother, was an elderly Asian gentleman, who was a rice producer, manufacturer and distributor. He had rice fields in Brazil and a manufacturing plant in Dunkerque, but he had chosen to make the UK his hub for global marketing activity. Another UK-born Asian was the proud owner of the biggest independent UK network of grocery stores.
The event was sponsored by the largest Indian television station in the UK and an effervescent and wonderfully entertaining Indian television presenter was the master of ceremonies. The award ceremony itself followed the standard pattern: category based, with the winner emerging from a shortlist of three or four.
Significantly, however, the vast majority of the brands on display were unfamiliar to me. Sharwoods, Tilda and Reggae Reggae Sauce were really the only ones I knew. Yet all the winning brands represented big turnovers, were in mainstream distribution in big supermarkets and invested significant amounts of money on brand communications campaigns. And the VIP guest speaker was one of Britain’s most prominent Indian-origin MPs, Keith Vaz.
Cut to 22 March 2013, when my son, Archie, had the opportunity to be videographer on the occasion of the 16th Asian Business Awards – another prestigious black tie event in central London. The brochure opened with a message of support from the Prime Minister, and Home Secretary Theresa May was the chief guest.
In addition to the awards, the night also saw the launch of the eagerly anticipated Asian Rich List 2013, profiling the top 101 UK Asian entrepreneurs. The net worth of these individuals combined had risen from a total of £41.2 billion in 2012 to £45.6bn – an increase of 10.7 per cent.
Amit Toy, writing for the Eastern Eye Rich List brochure, commented: “The 101 people on the list, whose companies are still mainly family-run businesses, have created employment for hundreds of thousands of people, many in Britain. For example, the Bestway group, headed by Sir Anwar Pervez, employs around 4500 people in Britain. Lord Swraj Paul’s Caparo plants in the West Midlands employs 3000. ‘Chicken king’ Ranjit Boparan Singh employs 18,000. Lakshmi Mittal’s ArcelorMittal steel factories and mines employ 245,000 people in 60 countries but his family’s investment arm has now acquired a UK cement company, Hope Construction Materials, which has safeguarded the jobs of its 800 employees in Britain.”
The article then went on to talk about some of the emergent new wealth coming into the UK from Asian business entrepreneurs, among them Ramesh Sitija, who had acquired a home in Mayfair, London, and had extensive interests in Africa, principally in Nigerian mining. His personal wealth is estimated to be £390m. When interviewed about why he had chosen to make his home in England, his explanation was: “London is a hub of global business activity and the added attraction was a stable environment and a good family life.”
The most important recent arrival in London was billed as Sir Prakash Lohia, brother-in-law of Lakshmi Mittal, whose company, Indorama, is the biggest polyester manufacturer in the world, a publicly listed company, assessed conservatively at £2.25bn.
Integration, not segregation
My reason for writing at length about both of these events is that they opened my eyes to my central theme: that integration, not segmentation, is the way forward for marketing in multicultural Britain. And that those advertising and marketing agencies who can find acceptance by some of the newer thriving business communities and networks represented by the World Food Awards and the Asian Business Awards, among others, have huge potential for business expansion and development.
I read with interest the observations made by Culture Watch founder Kate Wilson in the March issue of Market Leader. Having taken the decision, on behalf of IPA members, to be an early investor in the Culture Watch initiative, I shared her frustration about the resistance she had experienced from major brand owners. But while I agree that brand owners need to take the diversity issue more seriously along the lines Kate recommends, I have come to different conclusions as far as agencies are concerned.
They are more likely to reap rewards from multicultural marketing by taking initiatives with ethnic companies to extend niche brands to the mass market. Niche brands have strong roots and authentic credentials built within a particular ethnic community, which provides a solid foundation for profitable business growth for agencies. The logical extension of this argument, of course, is to encourage major companies to invest in purchasing small ethnic manufacturers with brands that could be extended to the mass market.
A programme to bring this approach to life
My primary interest as the IPA’s director of marketing lies in helping to develop programmes that will attract these culturally segmented businesses to work with IPA agencies to take their brands mainstream – and to attract consumer-facing businesses from emerging markets to make the UK their marketing services hub for international expansion.
My overall approach is ‘inside out’, rather than ‘outside in’. We are exploring four different but interrelated streams of activity in the belief that we need to demonstrate cultural understanding and cultural integration within IPA member agencies before we can gain acceptance with ethnically diverse brand owners and brands.
1. Becoming a recognised thought leader in reporting on the multicultural consumer market in the UK
The IPA was the first trade association to publish a report on multicultural Britain, jointly with the then Central Office of Information (COI) in 2005.
This was followed last year by a second publication, Multicultural Britain 2012, featuring key contributions from economics fascinating facts about Britain’s ethnic minorities, these three stood out for me:
'Mixed race' Britons constitute the fastest-growing ethnic category in the UK.
By 2016, half of the black and minority ethnic (BME) population will be under the age of 12, whereas half of the white population will be under 40.
By 2051, England and Wales will be as diverse as London is now.
The overall conclusion from the overview section of the report was that: “Britain’s minority ethnic population is modest by comparison [with the US] but has already influenced many areas of British life. As innovators and trendsetters, they are integral to our nation’s success and worthy of attention.”
2. Developing a climate and culture within the IPA memberships which makes business leaders from ethnic communities welcome
For the past five years, we have been keen to attract agencies representing minority ethnic groups into the IPA’s membership. Given the criteria for eligibility to the IPA, these agencies tend to also be some of the biggest in their field. Three prime examples are:
Media Reach: An integrated, full service agency that focuses on marketing for multicultural audiences. With over 25 years’ experience over a number of brands, including Talk Talk multicultural campaigns, Department of Health Asian campaigns and Rebtel Telecom, it is one of the key communication agencies in this field.
Di5 Global: This Asian agency specialises in marketing Asian brands to the UK Asian community and offering mainland Indian brands the opportunity to make London a launchpad for international expansion.
HereandNow 365: A great example of a diversity media agency that specialises in ethnic media, marketing and advertising for the public and private sector. It is continually raising the bar for ethnic communication in the UK and Europe, with a range of clients, from Thames Valley Police to Bank of India.
The IPA communities group brings these members together under the umbrella of a diversity forum, which meets four times a year to discuss issues of common interest. From September 2013, the forum will be launching a broader programme to educate the rest of the IPA’s membership about the multicultural community they serve, to celebrate their different cultural traditions, and the commercial value of targeting a mixed-race audience.
3. Integrating diversity into our Future of Talent strategy to attract more diverse talent into the industry – a win-win for all parties
In the past two years, the IPA has taken a central role in helping its members attract a more diverse talent base, particularly at undergraduate level. We have employed the services of not-for-profit organisation Shared Equal Opportunities (SEO) to represent the industry with ethnically diverse communities on 53 different university campuses.
Their job is to open the minds and eyes of these career-orientated students to consider advertising and marketing communications as a viable profession – alongside law, accountancy and business. SEO even holds seminars with parents of these students on our behalf because in the vast majority of cases there is no history of family members coming into our industry, and this is one of the biggest barriers we need to break down.
From an original talent pool of 1200 – 50% Afro-Caribbean and 50% Asian, with a 50/50 split between men and women – SEO introduced the 200 best candidates to the IPA in 2012. Members were invited to participate in two education and familiarisation days. Wherever possible, our speakers were examples of people from an ethnic minority background who had proven success in the industry, such as Julian Douglas, partner at VCCP London. More than 20 of these candidates have since found their way into the industry.
Our aim is to increase the percentage of graduate intake from ethnically diverse backgrounds from 10% to 30% within three years.
4. Developing an active export and inward investment awareness and implementation programme for IPA members
For the past five years the IPA has partnered with the government’s UK Trade and Investment on a two-pronged strategy to encourage export and inward investment, with a focus on high-growth emerging markets, notably China and Brazil. The IPA has led three trade missions to Beijing, the Shanghai Expo and the China International Advertising Festival; and latterly to Brazil as part of the official Olympic handover.
Over this period the number of IPA member agencies with affiliate offices in China has grown from 23 to 73 and the first main stream Chinese consumer brand, Huawei, has employed the services of BBH in London. We are actively encouraging our member agencies to develop joint business development strategies with their international counterparts in emerging markets.
The IPA is also looking to export its online qualifications to these markets and to launch a study tour programme for overseas businesses to find out more about how they can make the UK their marketing services hub for global expansion. The 2012 Olympic Games provided a perfect platform for our pitch and we were active contributors to the government’s Global Business Summit, arranging joint platforms for UK agencies and their international clients from Brazil, India and Taiwan.
Returning to the earlier theme of this piece, we now have India in our sights. Already 42 member agencies have affiliate offices in India and we are in talks with UKTI about more export and inward investment opportunities.
Marketing to an ethnically diverse population
Overall, our ambition for the industry is to be inclusive not exclusive, and to demonstrate our multicultural credentials through our actions as well as our words. Our experience to date suggests that we are knocking on an open door.
The rich ethnic diversity of the UK population provides a unique opportunity to gather human insights of relevance to global advertising and marketing and pave the way for fruitful relationships with ethnically diverse brand owners, not only from the five continents but also indigenous to our own market.
In five years’ time, the young people we recruit today, and the niche communities we build relationships with now, will be leading our agencies and client companies.
From small acorns big oak trees grow.
Janet Hull is director of marketing at the IPA janet@ipa.co.uk. This article was taken from the June issue of Market Leader. Browse the archive here.
Feature Image: 
Library Catagory:
Market Leader Archive
Sub Header:
by Janet Hull
Rating:
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)
Interest Tags:
Customer
Growth Drivers
Tagging:
Market Leader
June 2013
JANET HULL
IPA
multicultural marketing
Seo Title:
Taking niche brands mainstream by Janet Hull | Market Leader Quarter 3 2013
Short Title:
Multicultural marketing
Similar Articles:
Making it big in Bangalore
Beyond the orthodoxy of globalisation