(By René Romer of TransCity)
City people can be considered as trendsetters. It is in the DNA of city people to adapt smoothly to their ever changing social environments. And since those in the rural areas - especially the youngsters - are heavily influenced by the latest trends in the cities, city people are an essential target group for marketers.
Cities: home to migrants
Cities in Europe and around the world have always been attractive to migrants. Cities are the places to study, find jobs and build up careers. The Dutch port city of Rotterdam, for example, is rooted as a migrant city. The city was built up by migrants. Where in the past, migrants came from Dutch provinces such as Zeeland, Brabant and Friesland, in recent decades migrants have flown in from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern European countries.
Cities: home to trendsetters
Cities around the world are home to trendsetters. Many people in rural areas (often late adopters), have the ambition to be active participants of urban trends.
City people tend to try out new products and services sooner than those in the rural areas. The reasons are easy to understand. City people have always had to adapt to changing circumstances. Whether or not they moved in from a distant place themselves, city people were always confronted with new migrants, coming in from unknown destinations, opening new shops with exciting food, listening to music they’ve never heard before. They’ve grown up with the need of having a mindset that was more open than the mindset of those in the rural areas, where life throughout the years never changed that much.
The implications are that those who are of the urban mindset are more easily influenced by the perception of the latest trends. In the Netherlands, for example, Nike and FunX radio are in the forefront of urban marketing. And those companies who are seen as a credible partner within the urban market, will have a great influence on the choices of many consumers in both urban and rural areas.
Urban marketing versus ethnic marketing
There is a major difference between urban marketing and ethnic marketing. Ethnic marketing speaks directly to the group’s culture and roots, while urban marketing refers to a particular lifestyle. However, urban marketing and ethnic marketing can go very well together. When the urban (cross cultural) lifestyle is central in developing communications, the ‘translation’ to separate ethnic groups can often easily be made, simply because many of these specific ethnic groups are an integral part of the urban lifestyle. To the contrary, when the specifics of one distinctive ethnic group (different from other ethnic groups) is central in developing communication, it often becomes far more difficult to ‘translate’ it at a later stage to a wider urban and mainstream audience. (It only works the other way around if that one specific ethnic group is seen as trendy throughout the country, like was once the case with the Latinos in the United States as a result of the success of artists like Jennifer Lopez.)
Urban mindset: a mentality
The urban mindset is a mentality. People of the urban mindset are used to interact with other cultures (either intensely or on a more irregular basis), because these other cultures are within their social circle every day: in the shops they buy their products, at school, night clubs, eating places, sports clubs. Day by day, people of the urban mindset are surrounded by fellow citizens with a wide variety of ethnic-cultural backgrounds. In the Netherlands, Amsterdam and Rotterdam consist of some 170 different ‘nationalities.’ In the country’s major cities, it is no exception when a school class of 30 children consists of 20 different ‘nationalities.’
The urban mindset is therefore not a mindset of only the largest ethnic communities in the Netherlands and Europe as a whole. The urban mindset is a mindset of all those who live in the major cities and actively interact with different cultures on a daily basis.
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