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Do Russians drink vodka or what?

by Ilya Merenzon
Saturday, December 18, 2004. 10:52PM
486 Views 3 Comments

Russians, who are known for drinking a lot and making international calls a lot and buying Cartier a lot are surpisingly overlooked by ethnic marketers. What do you think is the reason? Any advice on how to bring large advertisers to look into the Russian-American market?

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Monday, December 20, 2004. 12:52PM by Robert Moss
Size of a particular ethnic market is not the only factor. Purchase patterns are very important. For example, Los Angeles’s San Gabriel Valley is home to a huge influx of recent Chinese immigrants. Expensive cognacs, like certain varieties of Hennessy and Remy Martin (some cost > 1,000 USD) are bought as gifts to curry favor and not to be drunk at home. If you walk into most large Chinese grocery stores in San Gabriel Valley, you’ll see attractive, young women in font of tables promoting a specific cognac. It works.
Chinese TV in Los Angeles tends to be spots for restaurants, basic necessities and cars (Lexus had been popular but Mercedes and BMW are on the upswing). Outdoor near Focus Square and other large, all-Chinese shopping centers in San Gabriel Valley are often for expensive watches (i.e. Vacheron Constantin, Girard-Perregaux, etc.) at Chinese owned jewelry stores.
Los Angeles also has a large Russian American population with its own restaurant and nightclub scene. It’s not uncommon to see Russians shopping at Armani Exchange and similar shops, so Ilya I think you’re close. You just need to educate marketers.
Monday, December 20, 2004. 10:24AM by Marc Lefton
I think when advertisers look at ethnic groups, they find the largest ones and concentrate on them. The Hispanic market is huge and growing rapidly. For every group, ads need to be translated, which is costly. If a group is not large enough it doesn't pay to go through the extra production costs of translating/back translating, editing, and trying to overcome cultural differences.
Monday, December 20, 2004. 10:04AM by Jennifer Schilcher
As with any good marketing campaign, the focus should be on more important issues...not race. AGE/INCOME/GENDER/EDUCATION lEVEL/LOCATION. Guess that's not to say that some very specific ethnic factors do make a difference as well, but from my opinion, should never be used soley for marketing. We all know what happens when we "assume" :)

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