Are Muslims a new niche market? Many US-based businesses think so and have even created products that cater to this community.
In the ballroom of an upscale hotel a short train ride from New York, advertisers, food industry executives and market researchers mingled — the men in dark suits, the women in headscarves and Western dress. Chocolates made according to Islamic dietary laws were placed at each table.
The setting was the American Muslim Consumer Conference, which aimed to promote Muslims as a new market segment for US companies. While corporations have long catered to Muslim communities in Europe, businesses have only tentatively started to follow suit in the US— and they are doing so at a time of intensified anti-Muslim feeling that companies worry could hurt them, too. American Muslims seeking more acknowledgment in the marketplace argue that businesses have more to gain than lose by reaching out to the community.
India’s investment community has offered a solution to a quandary faced by millions of Muslims by launching a share index that complies with Sharia law.
The Bombay Stock Exchange has unveiled a new index of companies that meet the Islamic legal code, allowing the country’s 140 million Muslims to play the stock market. Sharia law prohibits Muslims from holding an investment portfolio whose stock picks include companies that sell alcohol or tobacco, or businesses that charge interest.
The exchange has teamed up with a Mumbai-based Islamic finance company, Tasis, to create the BSE Tasis Sharia 50 index, consisting of the 50 largest and Sharia-observant companies in the BSE 500 including Reliance Industries – a gas, oil and food conglomerate.
Below is an article as published on the EbonyJet online platform in the US, related to Ebony Magazine, about Dutch-Cape Verdean artist Suzanna Lubrano. This is how “crossover” can look like in the Netherlands.
“Most fans of world music know the music of Cape Verde only through the odd compilation album or the ubiquitous sounds of Cesaria Evora. Those compilations, however, tend toward on style – the somber, hauntingly beautiful strains of accordion and Portugese-flecked guitar mixed with West African rhythms. It is gorgeous background music – memorable mind you – but still best when relegated to a dinner party mix or meditative workout.
Suzanna Lubrano’s approach, however, is very much upfront. Her Cape Verdean zouk is clearly and exuberantly intended for dancing, not dining. And her star is rising with a recent win last week of “Best African Artist of the Disapora” in the prestigious online poll, Museke Online Africa”, not an easy feat when fellow voters from the tiny island of Cape Verde have only so many votes to give.
Collaborations like those with Candy Dulfer, former Prince protégé and popular smooth jazz artist, have gained her attention and some key appearances on the European music television circuit. And though she’s singing in Portugese, the influences here feel less Afro-Brazil than they are reminiscent of Miami-style Latin pop, a dynamic that’s getting Suzanna play from DJ’s at concerts and festivals on this side of the pond. This is not crossover music, at least not her part. To fully enjoy Suzanna’s gifts, you’re gonna have to be the one to crossover to her. We think you should.”
On the occasion of the major gains by the far right nationalist Freedom Party in yesterday’s Dutch general elections, below are excerpts from an article, published in Time Magazine, written by Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. The full article (see link below) makes interesting reading.
“Europe just doesn’t get it. It does not get how irrelevant it is becoming to the rest of the world. And it does not get how relevant the rest of the world is becoming to its future. The world is changing rapidly. Europe continues to drift.”
“I am not exaggerating when I say Europe’s obsession with restructuring its internal arrangements is akin to rearranging the deck chairs of a sinking Titanic. The focus on internal challenges when the real threats are external.”
“Over the long run, geography — when combined with economic shifts of power — determines destiny. America’s interests in Asia are rising while its interests in Europe are declining. A growing Hispanic population will make Latin America more important. This is why the time has come for Europeans to think the unthinkable: the “natural” transatlantic partnership may someday come to an end.”
“The whole world wants to see a strong Europe. It can provide an alternative pole of growth, a model for abolishing wars between neighbors, cultural education and a moral voice for supporting initiatives like the Kyoto Protocol and the International Criminal Court. There are no shortages of opportunities for Europe to provide leadership. But, as Copenhagen demonstrated, it may no longer even be in the room when crucial decisions are being made.”
The next ad was televized during a cricket match between Australia and the West-Indies in Australia.
Below is the response to the ad of The Young Turks in the US:
“These black folks are so unrruly and uncivilized, so rowdy, jumping up and down, they just can’t sit down unless you give them some damn fried chicken, this is so racist.”
And here follows the response to it from Australia:
“Young Turks, you are more ignorant than the people who made this ad, you are saying that all black people are African-American, that is what in effect you are saying. Not all black people are African-Americans, there are other countries in the world besides the United States of America, and yes, there are other black people in the world besides African-Americans, I know, it’s shocking for you, I just found out the other day man.”
Check You Tube for many more comments on the above discussion.
Above is an impactful tv ad in the Netherlands, developed from the insights of one specific ethnic cultural community. This commercial, made by FHV BBDO, is a hit in the Surinam community in the Netherlands as well as in Surinam.
TransCity Diversity Marketing & Communications, in cooperation with MCA Communicatie and EtnoMedia, is responsible for the very successful introduction campaign of Telesur in the Netherlands.
Telesur is the national Telecom company of Suriname. They have launched a unique simcard in the Netherlands. The simcard can be used in two countries, the Netherlands and Suriname, it has two local mobile phone numbers (a Dutch and a Surinamese number), and it uses one low local rate, so that calling from the Netherlands to Suriname or from Suriname to the Netherlands can be done against the same low local rate.
The introduction campaign was build around the theme ‘Two countries, one feeling’ which does not only match the instrumental elements of the physical product, but also the emotional values: the Surinamese community in the Netherlands is among the largest single ethnic minority communities in the country.
Below is the image of the teaser campaign (which ran in the two weeks before the launch) as well as short Dutch language movie that was made with stand-up comedian Roué Verveer. This movie was also done in the teaser phase of the campaign, a phase in which only the campaign theme was launched. In this short movie Roué Verveer gives his interpretation of ‘Two countries, one feeling’.
Source: The New York Times (Picture Jessica Kourkounis)
Ethnic Marketing can be relevant in all fields of marketing and communications, and for all products and services, including health insurance.
Recently, the New York Times reported on the higher risk of Alzheimer for Hispanics.
Antonio Vasquez, as the New York Times reports, was just 60 when Alzheimer’s disease derailed him. He lost his job at a Queens bakery because he kept burning chocolate chip cookies, forgetting he had put them in the oven. Then he got lost going to job interviews, walking his neighborhood in circles.
Teresa Mojica of Philadelphia was 59 when she got Alzheimer’s, making her so argumentative and delusional that she sometimes hits her husband. And Ida J. Lawrence was 57 when she started misplacing things and making mistakes in her Boston dental school job.
Ahmed Aboutaleb, a prominent Labour politician who was born in Morocco, will be the new mayor of Rotterdam. Aboutaleb (47) is currently the deputy minister of social affairs. He will start his new job on January 1, 2009, after the home affairs ministry confirms his appointment.
Before becoming a deputy minister in February 2007, Aboutaleb made a name for himself in Amsterdam, where he was the city council’s executive for social affairs.
Aboutaleb is the first mayor of Moroccan descent to be appointed in the Netherlands. Rotterdam is the country’s second biggest city (population 584,000) and has substantial social and poverty issues.
