THE MISRPRESENTATION OF ETHNICS MIGHT BE PART OF THE REASON WHY SOME AGENCIES HAVE FAILED TO TARGET CERTAIN AUDIENCES. WHY IS ETHIC RELEVANT?

At present, ethnic minorities play an extremely small role in the PR industry, which has a very white outset, and in order to sell itself successfully to the wider public, its make-up should epitomise the UK’s multicultural character. As a public-oriented industry, PR needs to understand the wider community, and in order to do this it needs to recruit more ethnic minorities.

It is important to correct that there is no outright discrimination in the industry. Rather, there is a lack of understanding and awareness about specific roles that ethnics could play in the PR industry.

A recent study of Blacks and Asians PR practitioners in the UK reveals significant dissatisfaction with the PR profession’s commitment to diversity, perceived pervasive discrimination, and widespread concern that multicultural practitioners are relegated to a slow professional track.

What is meant by 'ethnic'?

There's a lot of misunderstanding regarding what is meant by the term 'ethnic'. Perceptions of what's and what's not ethnic change over time. For instance, in the UK, the best selling snack food is the humble samosa which is probably as much a part of mainstream British cuisine as another British favourite - curry and rice! In fact, Marks and Spencer's sell more chicken tikka masala prepared meals (a British invention) then any other choice of convenience meal.

What does this mean for marketing and PR professionals?

Successful brand owners will now start (unless they haven't already done so) to segment target consumer groups more carefully by taking account of the increasing ethnic population of their audience.

For example, one ethnic group that has excelled is the Asian community in the UK. Of all ethnic groups they enjoy the greatest commercial and financial success with a combined disposable income of a whopping £10 billion. As a brand owner, if you're not interested in converting even 1% of this lucrative market, you will be losing out to your competitors who see the value of marketing to this group. For example, Mercedes sells a high percentage of its top range luxury cars to Asians. And yet there are limited images of Asians in the mainstream media - particularly on TV and TV commercials. Research by Media Reach Consulting shows that Asians, Arabs and Chinese are less than impressed with TV, on both language and cultural issues.

Mainstream media stands accused of portraying black people as sportspeople or musicians and Asians as shop keepers. The fact is that many audiences are turned off by stereotyping by broadcasters and brands. The key is market segmentation which can be a complex process.

Movies like 'East is East' and ‘Bend it like Beckham' are good example of messages working on a number of levels – marketing the movies to a diverse audience although positioning them as a British comedy in the same mould as Bridget Jones, a very different type of film. This works brilliantly and the movies become box office successes. Another example of the integration of ethnic humour into the mainstream is the hit BBC 2 show ‘Goodness Gracious Me'.

Increasingly, organisations and brand owners need to communicate with diverse audiences, which pose more challenges for communication professionals. Ethnic marketing and media is as important as mainstream marketing and media, and in some ways can be more important. It's got nothing to do with tokenism but everything to do with customer segmentation and understanding your audience.

It's a point that's not very well understood by many public relations and marketing professionals. Yet ethnic marketing is growing in importance for many mainstream brand owners.