EthnicMajority

(Reuters) U.S. children and teenagers are seeing far more soda advertising than before, with blacks and Hispanics the major targets, as marketers have expanded online, according to a study released on Monday.

The report from the Yale University Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity also said many fruit and energy drinks, which are popular with teenagers, have as much added sugar and as many calories as regular soda.

"Our children are being assaulted by these drinks that are high in sugar and low in nutrition," said Yale's Kelly Brownell, co-author of the report. "The companies are marketing them in highly aggressive ways."

Children's and teens' exposure to full-calorie soda ads on television doubled from 2008 to 2010, fueled by increases from Coca-Cola Co and Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc, the report found.

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(Eureka Alert press release) It has been well-documented that minorities are subject to discrimination in product pricing and customer service. What is startling is the result of a new study professors at the USC Marshall School of business in conjunction with University of San Diego's School of Business Administration, that shows that sometimes ill-treatment can make African-American consumers voluntarily pay more for goods and services than they would normally, as well as pay more than their Caucasian counterparts.

Aarti S. Ivanic, assistant professor of marketing at the University of San Diego's School of Business Administration; and Jennifer R. Overbeck, assistant professor of management and organization along with Joseph C. Nunes, associate professor of marketing at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, set out to understand inequities in transactions. In their study, "Status, Race and Money: The Impact of Racial Hierarchy on Willingness-to-Pay," forthcoming in Psychological Science, the researchers found that African-Americans who felt their status was threatened by poor service because of their race were willing to pay more for products and services to assert their social standing.

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(St. Louis American) Recently the Pew Research Center released an alarming report highlighting the fact that white Americans now have 20 times more wealth than African Americans and 18 times more wealth than Hispanic Americans. While this came as a shock to some, it is par for the course for others.

Historically, whites have always earned and accumulated more wealth than minorities in American society. Despite this, the white-black wealth gap is the widest it has been since the census began tracking the disparity in 1984, when the ratio was roughly 12 to 1.

The collapse of the housing market bubble coupled with the recession caused median wealth to fall by 53 percent for African-American households, 66 percent for Hispanics and 16 percent for whites. One of the main reasons for such a major decline in minority wealth is due to the fact that African Americans and Hispanic Americans tend to invest heavily in their homes without investing in other asset building products such as stocks, bonds and savings accounts.

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(Globe and Mail) If the people who expressed all that outrage in the social and mainstream media over the banana-tossing in London, Ont., really believe it was an isolated act by a lone racist moron and not indicative of a greater problem in hockey then they are greatly mistaken.

Granted, unlike the ugliness of someone throwing a banana at a black player such as Wayne Simmonds of the Philadelphia Flyers, there is almost no direct racism in the National Hockey League these days. But racism in the NHL is far more subtle, just as it is in a wider society like Canada.

In more than 25 years of covering the NHL, I have seen plenty of evidence it exists with precious little of it in the open. The worst examples were a popular, likeable head coach who routinely used the n-word in bar conversations, and an elderly Hall of Famer who occasionally wrote me letters complaining about the state of today’s game. His diatribes contained more than a few anti-Semitic references to the current NHL leadership.

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(The Root) ColorLines is reporting today on a study concluding that racial profiling based on names may determine the online advertisements you see. The preliminary investigation into this issue was conducted by Tech-Progress' Nathan Newman.

Google offers advertisers what it calls "highly relevant advertising," using specially designed programs to deliver relevant ads to users by analyzing what they've searched or read on the Internet. But according to the new study, the results can be very different according to the digital profile Google creates for you. And that's based not only on your online habits but also on information about your class and geographical location, and even on the ethnicity associated with your name.

ColorLines' Jorge Riveras explains that the investigation into the way your race may affect the ads you see used nine names and then associated each of them with a number of simple terms.

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(Phoenix Business Journal) The National Football League    across the country and the Arizona Cardinals in the Phoenix market are stretching their leads over their competitors when it comes to marketing to Hispanic fans and fostering their loyalty.

“Without question, Hispanic sports fans are migrating to the Cardinals in greater numbers,” said Ray Artigue, CEO of the Artigue Agency communications firm in Scottsdale and a former executive with the Phoenix Suns    . “Historically baseball loyalists, Hispanics are also becoming football fans. And, research shows that the NFL is starting to dominate this audience segment.”

Artigue is also former head the sports MBA program at Arizona State University    .

Cardinals vice president Mark Dalton points to an ESPN poll showing Hispanic fans list the NFL as their favorite American sport. Twenty-six percent of Hispanic fans in the ESPN poll say the NFL is their favorite sport compared to 9 percent each for baseball and basketball. That mirrors other polls of all U.S. sports fans showing the NFL as the most popular sport.

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(Examiner.com) Kmart announced yesterday the formulation of their Latina Smart Fund. The announcement was part of their observance of National Hispanic Heritage Month.

The Latino market is important to Kmart as many of their stores are in urban areas with a high or emerging Hispanic population

"Kmart recognizes education is a passion point within the Latino culture," said Nydia Sahagun, the director of multicultural marketing for Sears Holdings, the parent company of Kmart.

The Hispanic demographic has been very loyal to Kmart. As the chain moved its headquarters from downtown Detroit to suburban Troy in the 1970s they also were the first major national discounter to expand to Puerto Rico with stores in San Juan and Ponce. Both Kmart and Walgreens, which also expanded to the island around the same time, have enjoyed the loyalty of shoppers in the face of increasing competition as other retailers have moved there.

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(News Blaze) Fifty-one million strong and with households that spend more than any other population segment on laundry and household cleaning supplies, Latinos have an especially significant impact on the market for household products, according to "The Latino Household Products Shopper" by market research publisher Packaged Facts.

"Latinos, as part of the big spender segment in grocery stores, represent prime targets for marketers of household products, both in the store and before the store," says David Sprinkle, publisher of Packaged Facts.

The report identifies a high correlation between overall spending by U.S. households on groceries and spending on household products. Experian Simmons data reveals that 68% of Latino households spend an average of $80 or more per week on groceries, while 42% of Latino households spend an average of $125 or more. Packaged Facts' proprietary survey data show that grocery shoppers who spent at least $80 on their last grocery shopping trip are 41% more likely than shoppers on average to buy household products such as laundry and household cleaners, paper products and plastic products.

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(Washington Post) A kid walks into a Verizon phone store wearing a belt bristling with the latest tech gadgets.

The kid shows off his back-to-school hardware: “E-reader for textbooks . . . GPS . . . video camera for lectures . . . game pad.”

“Have you considered this?” responds the salesman, pulling out a smartphone. “It’s got all that and more than 200,000 apps.”

The kid’s smirk vanishes. He’s stunned into silence by the all-in-one convenience.

The most striking aspect of this new TV commercial may not be the product or the semi-humorous portrayal of gizmo love. It’s the casting. The kid is played by a young Caucasian actor; the salesman is Asian American.

The two roles fit a well-worn pattern, one noted by academic researchers for almost two dec­ades. When Asian Americans appear in advertising, they typically are presented as the technological experts — knowledgeable, savvy, perhaps mathematically adept or intellectually gifted. They’re most often shown in ads for business-oriented or technical products — smartphones, computers, pharmaceuticals, electronic gear of all kinds.

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(IMedia Connection) So what's all this hype about Latinos being the second-largest demographic in population and online consumption patterns in the U.S.? Does it make marketers salivate to plot online marketing campaigns for Latinos? And if so, why have efforts been so dismal? Assumption: Marketers think Latinos will make a purchase no matter who is selling the product; after all, they have to buy — stop right there. Bad assumption.

The 2011 IAB report "U.S. Latino Online: A Driving Force" found that more than half of U.S. Latinos prefer marketers to make a strong connection with their culture by relaying the message in this order of languages: Spanish, Spanglish, and then English.

The IAB also found that U.S. Latinos spend more time online than non-Hispanic whites, and that 61 percent of Hispanics made online purchases and spent an average of $746, which isn't far behind the total internet population at 72 percent, spending an average of $851.

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