Anyone who has followed this successful program about “Don Draper” and his business associates can appreciate the complexities of the character and the Advertising industry. When anyone is in the marketing services industry, it is imperative that they are aware of what is happening in popular culture and how this is factoring into emerging trends. The character of “Pete” has been the most astute in comprehending how society is changing and how that impacts the consumer population. It is interesting to watch the events of the 60’s era in contrast to how different our social moirés are in 2012. “Don” showed his front runner stripes when he promoted “Peggy” to a full time Copywriter, at a time when women who worked in companies were still largely relegated to secretarial jobs with very poor options for advancement. It wasn’t about tokenism, it was about someone who showed an aptitude for the job.

Look at what we used to be considered “ethnic”. We used to consider one of the firm’s capabilities as in “ethnic” marketing. The term was then revamped to be “multi-cultural” which should be a more inclusive term. Here at Cultural Buzz PR, several years ago we redefined what we do as “cultural marketing.” The reason for this is simple: we are a nation of multiple cultures, some are subcultures which reflect our personal identities, others are larger subcultures which reflect our group identities, and these traverse into larger identities such as our national identity as Americans in the United States.

These multiple group identities factor in how we effectively reach major Minority Populations: immigrant populations have many different sub cultural identities than their American born children who grow up within the social context of the USA, as does the next generation and the ones after that. If one were to graphically represent these trends, however, they would not evoke an easy linear representation due to the complexities of identity, group identification and subcultural contexts that can cross into other group identities. What this ultimate does result in is a rich social culture that is unique to the United States.

Cultural Marketing should not only be about one’s past ancestral roots, but the present, and the future aspects of our lifestyle. This includes not only what television programming becomes a part of our social psche, but other elements that are a part of our life: Internet use, technology adaption, online and in person socialization, as well as diet and food orientations, for starters. These are all factors that should be included when your agency develops your marketing plansbooks or proposals.

This time difference required at least 300 more minutes a week, or 5 more hours. In the US, time poverty is an issue with most women who either work full time, have child care issues, household and other responsibilities, especially if they are also involved with eldercare as well. Any woman whose “work” time leaves very little time for relaxation may find this type of investment very unappealing without readjusting one’s attitude of the skin care process.

In the context of management studies, we know that certain countries and cultures have more of a long term orientation where time is concerned. This translates to viewing actions and the impacts of actions not only in the short and mid-range, but the long range as well. How does this translate to consumer behavior? Looking at outcomes, the skin care regimen involved with the Japanese Skin Care line tested required first massaging the face to remove makeup. The foaming cleaner (not soap) also required massaging the face before rinsing the face, followed by a Skin Care Balancing Lotion, which is applied to adjust the skin’s pH and provide moisturizing. By the time these three steps alone have been in place, the skin and muscles on the face have experienced more increased blood flow to the face.

After participating in the Japanese Skin Care experience for one week, the results included other benefits besides skin that not only was decidedly no longer dry, but felt smoother and looked healthier. Investing in 5 hours of time in a week at first seemed daunting because of the time commitment, but after a few days, the “forced” time away from anything else (work, calls, meetings, and other obligations) became something to look forward to. When one away from the cognitive space of believing they are under a major time constraint to instead rewarding oneself with a “mini spa break,” those 5 hours became a mini vacation. Looking at the long term effects of increased circulation to the face, the psychological effects of taking time to care for oneself, and the effect of focusing only on one thing for 40”-50” that takes you away from the stress of daily living, the Japanese Skin Care regimen also can seem like an investment in mental well being.

Both Integrated Marketing Communications and Integrated Public Relations Agencies generally have Principals who have completed Graduate level business and marketing communications course work. As such, they are educated to understand business strategy and marketing tactics that can support the mission of the business and the goals of the organization. IMC provides the foundation so that your agency can develop sound methodologies that help to ultimately build the brand of your business, versus the platforms on which tactical actions are often launched.

Does your Marketing Agency understand Social Media, and how to integrate Social Media as a strategic tactic that supports your business and marketing goals?

So often we hear of companies who have become unhappy with using Social Media because it seems to not be doing anything for their business. Social Media is not for every business, but many businesses can benefit greatly by the additional reach that it can provide. Like any type of marketing tactic, SM should be a part of how your marketing goals are achieved; Social Media by itself is not necessarily the goal of your business, unless you are a Social Media Platform.

Does your Marketing Agency understand how Search Engine Optimization can be both from a technical and a strategic tool?

SEO or Search Engine Optimization should be a part of your overall Internet Marketing Strategy. Ideally, you want your SEO work to support and be an integrated part of your Business and Marketing Strategy, so that it builds your brand. SEO is an often misunderstood term. Properly done, it does not usually yield overnight results as it is a brand building endeavor, but properly done, it also should also have built your brand enough so that if you were to not do it after a year or two, your website would continue to work for you, versus disappear overnight. Properly done, SEO should provide value to your business. Continual investment in SEO developed in a Brand Building manner will, however, generally continue to provide an online strategic advantage that reduces the need to spend as large a budget on online advertising.

Is your marketing agency knowledgeable about Google-ology?

At one time, the Brand Google was synonymous with being a Search Engine. We love Google. In 2001, Google was our home page. Ten years later, we still love Google and it is no longer that upstart, quirky search tool but an information business. Google has integrated themselves both vertically and horizontally, and has positioned themselves for multiple levels of scalability. How does this impact you if you have a website presence?

When your marketing agency has developed a marketing strategy plan, if they aren’t Google-ists, then they may be only looking at one aspect of the search engine optimization matrix. Integrated with many of the Google appliances and features, many businesses can optimize Google in ways that other Search Engines do not, both vertically and horizontally. With Google-ology, your Brand’s online presence is strengthened and your online reach is integrated.

While working in the Fortune 100 world, dry office air was an issue for me, and my search for a topical solution led me to Noevir, a high end Japanese skin care line. With my very sensitive skin, I was fascinated that I had found a product that I could not only tolerate, but it was pleasant and did appear to help the appearance of my skin. It is also a product name that resonated with many Americans of Japanese descent here (notably the Nisei) who were familiar with the brand. Thus began a fascination for Japanese Skin care.

Many of Noevir skin care products are designed to be at least a five step process. First there was the make-up removal. This was not a hurried process, but it integrated as a facial massage, as well. The next step would be a “soap” used with water, that would help remove the impurities that the massage cleansing cream took out of your pores. This would be followed up by a balancing lotion, designed to help the skin’s PH and to tighten pores, and then a moisturizing lotion. At this point, my face would feel so moisturized that using their moisturizing lotion was like icing on a cake.

Noevir is an MLM and as such, has rules about how their products can be retailed. Generally, unless you are a high end salon, the products are sold via independent reps. The multistep process seems daunting for the time poverty stricken North Americans, but when you consider what each step is designed to do, it makes sense that so many users of these types of skin care lines who do the entire line, often have the appearance of nice looking skin as proof of at least the process.

Having dabbled with a variety of skin care options, and not having been thrilled at any of them when used for a month or so, I’ve been drawn back to Japanese skin care. I’ve often wondered about scalability, because many of the high end lines require an investment of well over $300 for their lines. Personally I’ve found the higher end lines have been more effective for myself, as I’ve gotten older. This changes the price mix for me considerably as the entire line of my favorite is over $400 if paying full retail. This pales in comparison to some of the high end lines sold in high end stores, where one bottle of product is nearly $400.

From a consumer behavior standpoint, one must ask what the differentiating factor is. In my case, it is not only that the line is Japanese skincare, as I’ve tried many of them and while they all seem to feel better than anything else I’ve tried, there are still wide variations and discrepancies in how my skin and the product interacts. This doesn’t seem to matter whether it is a high end product or a sub-line.

Recently I was at Mitsuwa, in Arlington Heights, and I decided to do a little in person research on some of their skin care products. I found one product marked as “Organic Natural Skin Cream” although a review of the ingredient list didn’t quite make me feel like I was using something I could whip up in my kitchen. What I did notice, however, is that it did not irritate my skin, and it helped measurably with some patches of dry skin where anything else I had been trying had not helped.

The skin care section at Mitsuwa also included many skin care lines, some of which are recognizable brands here, such as Biore, and DHS. DHS is generally sold via mail order, and the company includes generous quantities of samples of their products. I say “generous” in comparison to some of the rather minute samples other companies have offered. With DHS samples, you can actually get a decent idea whether the product item works for you or not.

One of the items I also picked up was a bottle that was mostly in Japanese. Having tried it, I was very pleased with it as the price point was fairly reasonable. After closer inspection, I discovered that it was also made by Noevir, but clearly not retailed in any way that would compete with their higher end MLM lines. However, the one bottle of lotion purchased was intended to be part of an entire set.

There are other high end Japanese skin care lines besides Noevir, amongst the more well known are Pola, Sheiseido, Shu Uemura and Kanebo; these range from what could be labeled designer, versus couture. While I haven’t tried them all, I can say that the regimen of using a Japanese skin care product alone requires a lifestyle adaptation and an attitude change. The multi step process leaves my skin feeling cleaner, and with all the creams and toners, it is impossible not to feel like you are treating yourself to a facial spa every day. Herein lies the difference between consumer behavior of most women in Japan, versus in the USA. Here, we tend to look at anything that slows down the time we need to go from” Point A to Point B” differently, since we tend to be of a short term time orientation. This is different from most group oriented cultures, which also look at long term orientation. In this case, this translates to investing in your skin care now, so that it maintains a clarity in the future.

There is also an excellent article on Japanese Skin Care in Ubiki Magazine, written by Yuko Enomoto. Click on the link to read it.

Internet Forums were an offshoot of Bulletin Boards, known as BBS and had a SysOp (which we would now think of as a moderator). They were popular in the 1970’s to the mid 1990’s.

There was also another service which used an X.25 dialup, called Prodigy. It was founded in 1984. By 1990 it was the second largest online service, trailing Compu Serve (CIS). Prodigy provided what was a forum for many people to meet and discuss similar interests and issues. One of the groups on an Electricians Forum was featured by Prodigy due to the success of bringing people from across the country together in one place. That particular forum was primarily educational, and there were electricians there who mentored other electricians. When I look back at the nature of the group and their dedication to Electrical Safety, done initially in a DOS setting on Dial-up, we are talking about a dedicated group of Social Networkers.

There are other sites, and this is not meant to be all inclusive, but it is meant to illustrate that Social Media has been around awhile and in different forms:

1969 CompuServe (CIS)
1984 Prodigy
1994 Internet Forums
1999 Blogger (Prya Labs)
2003 TypePad, WordPress
2003 MySpace
2004 Digg, a Social News Website

2004 FaceBook
2004 Yelp
2005 Reddit (Open Source by 2008)
2008 Posterous

If you are a marketing professional, it is important to take a step back and think about your business and marketing strategy mission, and then integrate the applicable Social Media within your tactical elements. All too often, I see or hear of people who are doing it all backwards, and more often than not, this leads to ineffective use of some unique tools for today’s world. However you choose to use Social Media, keep in mind that the goal should always be to build your brand first.

In marketing communications, as in life, very often you reap what you sow. When you invest in having a marketing communications firm manage your strategic communications, your results will generally be different because they are responding to commentary based on sound business and MarCom principals.

Let’s look at Social Media. When choosing one, it is important to utilize the type achieves your marketing and business goals. In some cases you may need to do several, and integrate their message. Common marketing and business goals include:

Expanding Reach
Engaging new customers
Developing and improving customer relationships
Announcing new products

Essentially, whatever you do on Social Media should build your business. The operative words here are “build YOUR business.” In order to do that, you need to have some measure of control over the platform that you use, and you also need to be aware of what control you do or do not have, and invest your time accordingly.

Considering that computers were invented during in the mid period of the 1900’s, and Dr. Grace Hopper invented the Cobol programming language (1959-1962), technological advances and applications were no stranger to this generation, although widespread application use was mainly limited to businesses until the mid 1980’s, when the Personal Computer first made its appearance.

One of the largest demographic generational groups has been referred to as the Baby Boomers. To make looking at the Boomer Generation meaningful, one must recognize that Boomers are not one monolithic group, but at least two groups with segments and sub segment target markets. Defining it as one group with such a range of time cohort socialization experiences does not adequately capture the psychographics. Jonathan Pontell, a social and cultural commentator, had identified the Boomer Group to be comprised of:

Boomer, born post war to 1953
Generation Jones, born between 1954- 1965.

So often I have heard assumptions regarding “older” people who are unfamiliar with technology. While there are plenty of Boomer and Gen Jonesers who are technologically savvy, we also need to remember that the Information Age was born from part of the Boomer group.  Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are both Generation Jonsers. We know how President Obama’s election campaign relied heavily on Social Networking. He too, is of Generation Jones.

When we look at generational cohort groups and technology, it is more appropriate to segment these groups in terms of lifestyle and psychographics. Looking only at age cohorts is not only misleading, but fraught with errors. What does occur when it comes to thinking about the older generation and the Boomer Segment, is that often people make assumptions based on ageism. When we stereotype, we are bound to make decisions based on false assumptions.

In Cultural Marketing, we not only look at ethnic subcultures of the “Big Four” in the USA (Latinos, Asian Americans, African Americans and Native Americans), but we also look at stereotypes and how they serve to not serve us. Remember, it wasn’t all that long ago that stereotypes about Asian Americans included the assumption that Asian Americans cannot be creative or good leaders in business. Tell that to Tony Tsieh, of Zappos, or Guy Kawasaki, or Christine Poon. Kawasaki is also a Generation Jones, that “older” generation that created the Internet, and revolutionized the way we do work and communicate using Microsoft and Apple Gen Jones products.

Speaking of the Internet, don’t forget Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners Lee, the inventor of the Internet and a Boomer segment member of Generation Jones.

Sometimes it’s not about age, but more about segmentation and lifestyle aspirations.

There has been an interesting trend of late, where organizations are choosing to use FaceBook and Twitter as their primary communications channel to the publics. Some organizations are heavily pushing the use of CR Codes as the way to reach the tech savvy generations. The problem is that some companies have been only using Social Media. Why is this a problem?

1. Without integrating your marketing message across different media, the opportunity to get it reinforced via hearing it multiple ways is lost.

2. Using Social Media only reaches those who are online, and only that segment of the population that is online and receiving your message. By only using Social Media, you exclude not only that part of your target market that may not be online and on the site you want them to be, but you can be missing those who for some reason or other, aren’t connected to the Internet or aren’t users.

While most of my friends have their iPhones or BlackBerry phones, iPads, Ultraportables and Netbooks, not everyone is online. We tend to have friends with similar interests and lifestyles, and technology fits in this category. However, a February 2010 Survey reported by CNET indicated that in the USA, 40% said they had no Broadband access at home, and 30% had no access at all. The report states that:

“People with higher rates of broadband access tend to be younger, white or Asian, highly-educated, married, and with higher incomes, while those with no broadband are often seniors or minorities, less educated, and living in non-family households with lower incomes or unemployed.”

While this demographic may appear to be the one you want, it is important to recognize you will be missing your secondary target. The secondary target may be the group that influences the primary target, especially if they are seniors or disabled persons with limited incomes but with families and friends with whom they have influence. Also keep in mind that there is often the assumption that people with low incomes lack education, but due to economic downturns and high unemployment, this is not necessarily still true for all persons with low incomes.

I have also seen this occur when companies try to assume the Hispanic population is one group. They are one group in that the immigrants generally all speak Spanish, but the Spanish language has regional differences. Cuban and Puerto Rican Spanish is different from much of the Spanish spoken in Central and South America, particularly in pronunciation. Certain words in one country’s Spanish can mean something completely different in another country, so reaching your audience, if it is appropriate, in Spanish needs to be done using a non-regional and non-national approach.

For older generations of Americans of Latin descent, not all speak Spanish, or speak Spanish fluently. Many of our friends can understand Spanish if they hear it, but cannot speak it or read or write it unless they have studied it formally. Therefore, using print media in Spanish to reach a 3rd or 4th generation American of Latin American descent is not necessarily the best tactic, and it also sends another message that may not be well received.

Asian Americans are actually a very straightforward group to reach, however the segmentation is more complex. The immigrant generation can be reached in their native language, but for most Asian Americans, the common language that binds them is English. Depending on the cohort you are trying to reach, cultural and sociological knowledge and history are important for effectively knowing how to make your products and services relevant, or in some cases, not making them irrelevant.

However, when reaching later generational groups, trying to reach certain subcultural segments in another language can be almost insulting, especially given our country’s history and treatment of Asian immigrants at the turn of the 1900′s. Marketers and companies who try to do this are sending a message that they may not intend to, and worse, it can be very insulting because it taps into the Perpetual Foreigner Syndrome.

The same analogies can also be made for other types of cultural marketing when we look at generational cohorts such as The Baby Boomers. While it is a generational group, it needs to be strategically defined and segmented for effective reach and relevancy.

Due to demographic and experiential differences, what were terms that made sense for one cohort can cause confusion when discussing another cohort.

The terms Issei, Nisei, Sansei, Yonsei refer to first generation, second generation, third generation, and fourth generations of Japanese and Japanese Americans, respectively. These terms developed amongst the Japanese Americans.

Originally, the term “Issei” or first generation, referred to the immigrants who came from Japan to the United States, mostly under the “Gentleman’s Agreement” between Japan and the United States. The bulk of the Issei came here between 1885 – 1925. Because of legalized racism, immigrants from Asian countries were barred from becoming US Citizens, in contrast to immigrants from Western and Eastern Europe, who were allowed to apply for Citizenship. European and African immigrants who came after the Issei were allowed to apply for citizenship. Immigrants from Japan could not become citizens until well past the middle of the 1900′s, after the Civil Rights Act of 1963 was passed. It was not until 1952, that the McCarran-Walter Act giving first generation Japanese Americans the right to citizenship, and thus the right to vote, and the racial restrictions of the 1790 Naturalization Law were repealed.

This is a very important distinction, because when you bar a person from becoming a Citizen of the country they have immigrated to, they are prevented in voting and in fully participating in American society. They are excluded from ever becoming full Americans, not by choice but by law.

The term “Nisei” refers to the American born children of the Issei. By birthright, Nisei were American Citizens, something their Issei parents could never be at the time most Nisei were born. Most of the Nisei and their Issei parents were interned as a result of EO 9066, if they lived on the West Coast. By contrast, the sizable Issei and Nisei populations in Hawaii were not.

The Sansei refer to the third generation of Americans of Japanese descent. Like the Nisei, as Americans they have also experienced scarring due to the effects of having their grandparents and parent’s singled out on the basis of race, but this generational cohort as a group has tended to be more outspoken and more active in understanding the effect of voiding civil rights based on race alone. The Sansei are the first generation to have gone through the American socialization and educational process with no governmental interruption, unlike their Nisei parents, for whom their educational pursuits were interrupted as they were forced to leave the schools they attended and forced to leave their homes, their belongings and anything else they could not carry with them.

There is a unique pschographic involved when discussing the Japanese American cohort, because the older generation of immigrant descendants have this in their history. Other older groups of Asian American immigrant descendants also have similar experiences, because they too were excluded from fully participating as Americans since all Asian immigrants could not become citizens until the mid 1900′s, despite having been here often long enough to see their grandchildren born here.

The Kaisha is another term to refer to Japanese in America, and it refers to those who have come to the USA as a result of working for Japanese Corporations who have sent them here. This group is different from immigrants because their intent is primarily to come to the US for work, but to then return to Japan, having fulfilled their International requirement.

New Issei is a term being used within the Japanese American community to refer to new immigrants from Japan. Most have come here around the 1990′s and later. For obvious reasons, their experiences as immigrants here are radically different from that of the Issei of over 100 years ago.

For additional reading, see:
The Issei Immigration
Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project
Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation