(By René Romer of TransCity, first published in ISIM in 2003, updated in 2006)
Is European advertising a mirror of the demographics of the European societies? The answer seems to be no. Or is it? Because the limited number of cases where advertisers do promote their products and services to Asian, Arab, African or Latin American Europeans, most probably reflects the importance that European nations attach to integrating these various ethnic communities in their societies.
The European landscape is changing rapidly. Europe has become an immigration continent. A continent in which the jewish-christian and humanist traditions are at least enriched with new islamic and hindu dimensions. Many European citizens have not yet adapted to these rapidly changing demoghraphics.
The increasing cultural diversity of European consumers also impacts on businesses. A candy producer like Haribo has substituted its meat produced gelatine with alternative substances making it suitable for the halal and kosher markets. Several financial companies now market targeted insurance and investment products, such as funeral insurances to cover the transport of the deceased abroad - for those with the islamic faith, the ritual washing of the body before transport is included. Some health insurers cover the costs for male circumsicion, while a few banks offer islamic investment products. However, in most instances such fundamental adaptions won’t be required. What is needed however, is adapting the ways in which we advertise for these products.
Why haven’t fundamental adaptions in advertising taken place? Why is cultural diversity in advertising considered on an incidental rather than a structural basis? A possible explanation could be that advertisers have for too long been looking at what separates ethnic communities instead of what binds them. The consequence is that marketers end up with too many niche markets. Since advertising budgets don’t allow for addressing every niche market efficiently, marketers end up focussing on the biggest segments. In other words: ‘the average consumer’. And the average consumer in Europe is still predominantly white.
On a small scale, targeted marketing and communication towards specific ethnic communities was introduced in Europe in the early ninetees of the last century. Advertisers were told to develop targeted ethnic campaigns because the different communities were said to be too different from the regular consumer: ‘Don’t use the white colour in advertising for the Moroccan community, because white is the colour of mourning’, marketers were advised. Amongst the other suggestions: ‘Caribbeans consider yellow to be a colour of happiness’; ‘Young blacks think blue is a dull colour’; ‘In print advertising for the Turkish community one should use a lot of pictures and a few words’. Ethnic marketing agencies often promoted their businesses by emphasizing the differences between communities.
In recent years, we notice a change in the way we tend to look at the markets. Marketers start to realize that a growing number of Asian, Arab, African or Latin American Europeans are primarily Europeans. They might be Europeans with a ‘double identity’ - an identity of the country of residence and an identity of the culture of the country of birth or their (grand)parents - but they are Europeans. Many are born and raised in Europe. They go to school in Europe, fall in love, get married and raise children, all inside Europe. Not as Asians or Africans, but as European citizens.
As European citizens, people watch Arab and Asian tv networks such as Al Jazeera, Zee TV or B4U, but these same Europeans enjoy BBC, Channel 4, Sky, ZDF, Antenne 2 or TVE. An Asian- British citizen could watch the Asian-British networks Prime TV and Reminiscent TV, but on the same evening pick up BBC’s news headlines. As Europeans, consumers read the Daily Jang, Nimrooz, Sing Tao Daily or Al Ahram, while these same Europeans read The Sun, News of the World, Metro, Bild Zeitung, Le Figaro or any other European newspaper. It is not uncommon for a Turkish-Dutch citizen starting the day reading both the Dutch Metro or Spits newspaper and the Turkish daily Hürriyet. Indeed, diversity has become the core of European societies.
As we have seen here, the European consumer grows more diverse by the day. But the majority of those in the European advertising sector tends to look at the consumer as white, or at least as caucasian. Even the ever increasing local ethnic media landscape in many European countries is not even considered by most advertisers as worth while spending part their media budgets on.
If advertisers do end up focussing on the biggest segments, as we have seen before, can’t they give a more balanced representation of Europe’s changing demographics in their general advertising? Yes they can, and a small but growing number of advertisers already do manage to cope with the multicultural dilemmas they are faced with, as we are now going to see.
In many countries, advertisers use local values to promote their products and services. But do these traditional local values still do their job in a cultural diverse society? Do those values appeal to those with ‘foreign’ ethnical roots? In most cases, the answer is no. In the Netherlands in the early ninetees of the last century, the peanut butter brand Calvé used the pay off: ‘who has not grown up with Calvé?’ For millions of Dutch citizens with a non-Dutch ethnical background, it was easy to say: ‘I didn’t grow up with Calvé!’. A few years later, the pay off was changed into ‘How big do you want to grow’? Without abandoning its brand value ‘energy to grow’, the brand suddenly extended its target audience to include the millions of ethnic communities who had not grown up with Calvé peanut buttter.
Sometimes, however, local values can work. The American Dream for example, has always been a dream for all ethnic cultural communities in and even outside the United States. It is a universal dream for all Americans.
Is there such an equivalent in Europe for the American Dream? A European Dream, or a British, a French or a Dutch dream which is universal for all ethnic cultural communities living in Europe? The question, unfortunately, cannot (yet) be answered positively. This does not, however, obstruct advertisers in finding universal values. In the late ninetees of the last century, Diesel Jeans’ pay off ‘for successful living’ has been effective in many countries and for many cultures. The family values of the global brand Western Union Money Transfer are another fine example.
As we have just seen with Calvé peanut butter, our good examples are not limited to global brands only. In the first part of the new century, we have seen some excellent advertising campaigns for local brands, going one step further than Calvé. The Dutch mobile phone brand Ben is one. (Two years ago, the Ben brand name has changed into the global brand T-Mobile). Ben boasts values of ‘individuality’ and ‘straight forwardness’. In advertising, these values are always linked to individuals, whether they are white or black, muslim or christian, young or old. Ordinary people are the heroes in all communication. Amongst the many interesting examples, two tv commercials certainly stand out.
The one tv commercial shows a young muslim girl in front of the mirror before leaving the house. She is binding her hair together, puts on her scarf, while her father is proudly glancing at her. After covering herself, she picks up her mobile to go. But before she leaves, she slips her mobile into a phone poutch, protecting both herself and her precious phone. In another commercial, we see an office department. All employees are quietly working on their computers. Suddenly one employee receives a text message. After reading the message, the man starts dancing around the department waving a Turkish flag. Apparently, the Turkish national football team has just won its latest match. When putting the flag away and taking his seat again, he kisses his mobile and starts working again.
Another brand awareness commercial that stands out, is one of the Dutch cheese brand Uniekaas. Their pay off ’unique cheese for unique people’ successfully matches the traditional Dutch values of butter and cheese with all Dutch citizens with a foreign mother tongue. In the commercial we find an Arab-Dutch family having breakfast while the mother tells the child what mothers in the Netherlands traditionally do: ‘first you have a savoury sandwich, then you have a sweet sandwich’. Of course, the mother speaks in Arabic. The pay off remains the same: ‘unique cheese for unique people’.
A fourth example is the ANWB, the Dutch equivalent of the Britsish AA. In the summer of 2005, a commercial on mainstream Dutch tv channels showed a Turkish-Dutch family on their way for a holiday in Turkey when their car broke down close to the Turkish border. They called the ANWB for help. This commercial had a massive appeal amongst the Turkish-Dutch population, while it was much talked about and liked by many other Dutch.
The fact that the various ethnic cultural communities do want to recognize themselves in the advertising content on mainstream television, is proved by an intense debate that started amongst the Surinamese community in the Netherlands on the Roti tv commercial of Knorr. The commercial shows an Afro-Surinamese guy - performed by an actor from Curaçao - who likes to listen to local Dutch music and embraces local Dutch customs such as cycling and ice skating. At home he prefers a traditional Dutch meal, while his Dutch wife (blond hair, blue eyes) serves traditional Surinames Roti to a large number of Surinamese relatives. The debate on the Surinamese webportal www.waterkant.net lasted for many months. Many Hindustani Surinamese were insulted by the fact that the Hindustani dish Roti was promoted by an Afro-Surinamese. The Afro-Surinamese responded by claiming that there is no need for complaints by the Hindustani community, because ‘they (the Hindustani population) may already promote the Peugeot 205, the Mentosh Fresh candies and other products… so it is about time an advertiser has selected Afro-Surinamese to promote their products.’ The views were equally split between pros and cons, but whatever the opinion, the impact of this commercial on the Surinamese community was massive.
These are examples of commercials where the advertising sector is apparently far ahead of politicians when it comes to the acceptance of cultural diversity as the new standard in the European societies. Unfortunately, these are still exceptions.
Just like Europe as a whole, the advertising sector as a whole does not yet mirror the changing European demographics as an integral part of their business. These examples are proof however, that the advertising world can play a major role in presenting a European society that has changed forever. Even though there have been major setbacks since 9/11, the growing diversity in European societies cannot be put to a halt. Most large advertising agencies are located in Europe’s major cities such as London, Paris and Amsterdam. These are all cities in which the population is growing more diverse by the day and since the ‘colour’ of the work force in Europe’s leading advertising agencies is likely to change sooner rather than later, advertising will in future most definitely adapt to these new European realities.
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