VISIBLE YET SO FAR AWAY….

As a Sky viewer, since I started thy blog – I cannot help but realise more and more, the explosion of ethnic media. For instance, in the asian market alone there are now more than 30 Asian TV channels.

Flicking through my 506 Sky channels (of which, I only watch 5), there is a pool of satellite channels dediated to the 'advanced' tastes of ethnic minorities. To name a few BEN, OBE, RAJ TV, TV Asian etc. There are even dedicated ethnic pornographic channels targeted at specific demographics i.e. ASIAN BABES. I wonder whom the targets are?

This got me thinking, why are these essentially pirated TV and radio channels despite their bad picture quality and content being not truly exploited by the agencies?

I concluded that it isn’t that marketing and PR agencies are not aware that these mediums exist, they just cant get to grips with this explosion of ethic-specific entertainment, after all why would anyone want to hold on so tightly to what they left behind. But the question is not so black & white, just because people have relocated for a ‘better’ life in England doesn’t translate to the need to forget one’s heritage.

Mainstream advertising agencies needs to jump at the chance to reach a new group of people with high levels of disposable incomes in most areas that they obviously aren't targeting in any way and they probably don't understand

I remember I was only 15 when I first saw Black bank clerk Howard Brown as the face of Halifax Bank's £25m annual advertising. Little did I know that the advert did not translate to the advertising and marketing industry becoming comfortable with multi-cultural Britain. The reality is that Brown is still an exception rather than the norm. Almost every advertising executive you speak to about on-screen ethnic minority representation points to the Howard campaign as their one example of better representation.

Michael Cudlipp, chair of the History of Advertising Trust Archive, says : "The use of black people in advertising is, at the moment, still very self-conscious."

HAT is a charity organisation backed mainly by the advertising industry, they spent two years researching ethnic minority representation in British advertising over the last century.

www.hat.org