The Development of Ethnic Marketing in Australia

Ethnic marketing is a term widely used in the marketing literature to refer to the study of
marketing within ethnic minority contexts and is often used interchangeably with the term
multicultural marketing (Cui, 1997; Pires, 1999).
As the United States has a longer migration history and a larger population size, many companies
in America are well aware of the potential of marketing to the diverse ethnic groups like African-
Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Asian-Americans (e.g., see Rossman, 1994; Schreiber and
Lenson, 2001). However, the development of ethnic marketing in Australia has been very slow
because of the following reasons (Chan, 1995):
• perceiving difficulty in understanding other cultures. This is largely due to lack of
confidence in dealing with an unfamiliar culture;
• remaining complacent with the mainstream market and not seeing a need to target the
ethnic markets separately. Some simply assume that the ethnic communities will have
access to the mainstream media; and
• being afraid that the targeting of ethnic markets will upset the mainstream market and
the “gains” may not be able to compensate for the “losses.”
The first to practise ethnic marketing in Australia have been government agencies utilising various
ethnic media to advertise and provide information in ethnic languages, ensuring that everyone in
the community has equal access to government services. There is a government policy that 7.5%
of all its print media budgets be allocated to ethnic press. The former Ethnic Affairs Commission
of New South Wales was one of the pioneers in developing the concept and practice of ethnic
marketing by launching the first National Multicultural Marketing Awards in 1990.
In spite of the push by the government to advance ethnic marketing, it was not until the mid-
1990’s that an increasing number of organisations from the private sector began to see the
potential of the diverse ethnic markets. The first multicultural marketing conference by the
private sector was held in July 1994 (Caldwell Management Pty. Ltd., 1994).
Drawing on his seven years of experience as a judge for the National Multicultural Marketing
Awards since 1991, Professor Ian Wilkinson has the following conclusions on the developments
in multicultural marketing in Australia in the past decade (Wilkinson and Cheng, 1999):
• A shift away from simple adaptation of advertising messages as the mainstay of
multicultural marketing strategies.