Companies need to recognize the effect Canadians of Asian descent have had on the mass consumer market, said multicultural business leaders at an American Marketing Association (Toronto chapter) roundtable this morning.
Robin Brown, senior vice-president of consumer insights for Environics Research Group, said mainstream culture has been slowly influenced by Asian culture over many years in Canada. “This convergence has created a very urban, very Asian-influenced culture that has a lot of commonalities with New York and London.”
Bobby Sahni, head of multicultural marketing for Rogers Communications, said that is why marketers today need to take a “homogenous” approach in their marketing communications. He cites the example of McDonald’s, which introduced mango and pineapple smoothies in the U.S. last year.
The smoothies were expected to be a hit with Hispanics, but McDonald’s launched them nationwide and sales soon overtook strawberry banana, the traditional favourite. In a recent article in The Economist, McDonald’s USA chief marketing offer Neil Golden said Americans often follow trends set by ethnic minorities.
Sahni said the same phenomenon is happening here. “By growing up in an Asian-influenced society, there has been a huge shift in the preferences of young people based on multicultural consumers,” said Sahni, who believes “multicultural marketing” will simply be referred to as “marketing” in the future.
“The Emerging Ethnic Markets in Canada: The Pioneers of Multicultural Marketing” roundtable opened with a presentation by Michael Adams, chairman of Environics Group of Companies, who said about 250,000 people immigrate to Canada every year. Currently, the top countries of immigrant origin are the Philippines, followed by China and India.
He also presented research showing how Canadian attitudes towards immigration have dramatically shifted over the past decade. The majority of Canadians, for instance, no longer agree with the statement that there is too much immigration to Canada. Seventy-four percent of Canadians also disagreed with the statement that immigrants “take away” jobs from other Canadians.
“In fact, Canadians believe they actually create jobs,” said Adams.
