Cultural Differences in Investing, New Report on Ethnic Media

Major banks and banking firms are active advertisers in the Asian American market. Saul Gitlin at Kang and Lee (a leading ad firm that helps corporations reach Asian American consumers) recently wrote that: "The current financial competitive landscape in the Asian-American market includes most national and regional retail banks, virtually every major insurance company, and most full-service and discount brokerage firms."

I found an article today that reminds marketers, including myself, of the importance of understanding the cultural differences between Americans and many Asians or Asian Americans.

Kevin Plumberg, a New York-based reporter for Reuters, reports on culture and tendency to save money today (3.29.06) in an article titled "Culture influences how many pennies get pinched."

He quotes both an economist and an advertising executive in explaining cultural differences between Asians and Americans, and begins the story with quotes from an Asian American woman whose actions mirror what Plumberg suggests are more likely to be Asian cultural characteristics.

Barry Bosworth, of the Brookings Institution, tells Plumberg that "An American might think in terms of saving for their own retirement, but an Asian will think of accumulating resources in terms of saving for their family, for multiple generations in the future."

Click [here] for a link to the full article. If the link becomes inactive I presume that a Google search will help you find it.

Meanwhile, the San Jose Mercury News reports today on a new Vietnamese newspaper in the Valley in an article today titled "Ethnic media filling the gap"

Mercury News writer K. Oahn Ha gives ink to the latest industry study of ethnic media: "Ethnic media, including television, online and radio, reaches one-fourth of the entire U.S. population and 80 percent of adults in minority communities, according to a 2005 study by New America Media, a San Francisco-based association of ethnic publications."

New America Media (I believe it was formerly known as New California Media) bills itself as the national association of more than 700 ethnic media organizations. I have no reason to believe their research is innacurate, and in fact enjoy reading the group's reports each year and referring students to their site, but I wish a generous foundation or individual with no investment interests tied to ethnic media would pay for this type of study and detach it from the industry.