WHERE IS THE 'ETHNIC' IN MARKETING?

I'm extremely keen to explore not only the underrepresenattion of ethnic minorities in Public relations but also in Marketing. Upon extensive research I have a growing realisation that advertising and marketing agencies know very little about ethnic minorities in the UK, and their consumption habits as British consumers.

The OMD Group, owned by one of the world's largest media agency network, Omnicom, recently teamed up with media research company Starfish to address this concern dubbed MinorityReport™. The survey tracked minority media consumption, relationship with brands, the impact of advertising and their attitudes and opinions on life in 21st century Britain.

The MinorityReport™ is the largest study into this growing demographic, and will give clients real knowledge of how to communicate with an extremely important group of consumers based on a representative sample of 1,700 respondents in England. It will cover the key ethnic groups including Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean Black African, Chinese and Mixed Race.

It’s amazing to think it took this long to conduct an extensive survey considering minorities make up 10% of the total population and they are no less (if not more) consumers than their white counterparts. There are currently nearly four and half million people in the UK that are part of ethnic minority communities - not all of them watch, read or listen to their particular ethnic media all the time. But the majority are tied in to their community and culture in some way or other. The question is, how many agencies understand that or want to understand?

http://www.starfishresearch.com/minority_report_sample.html