France is the first country of immigration in Europe; its particularity is to have the 3 Asian, African and Oriental communities. But curiously, it’s taboo to talk about ethnic PR and ethnic Marketing in France.
Indeed, this type of communication would go against the “integration model” of the French Republic: the country considers that all French people equally share one nationality, and shouldn’t be differentiated according to their ethnic origins, religions etc. However, ethnic PR and Marketing slowly start to appear in France…
What is ethnic PR?
It’s to consider that there is today a parallel market to the grand public market, which is a communities market. It’s to accept the existence of a society made by multiple communities, with their own consumption modes, lifestyles, languages, ways of dressing up, leisure… It’s to acknowledge that each ethnic group has its way of consuming, and so communicate to them according to their desires and needs.
Stakes
Ethnic minorities represent in France 12 to 14 millions of people, so more than 20% of French population, according to crossed statistic data, as official national statistics about the topic are forbidden. It’s a very interesting purchasing power that we maybe shouldn’t neglect. There is a true demand from minorities that is not exploited by brands. There is a market and a need, so the natural temptation to answer them…
Indeed, this type of communication would go against the “integration model” of the French Republic: the country considers that all French people equally share one nationality, and shouldn’t be differentiated according to their ethnic origins, religions etc. However, ethnic PR and Marketing slowly start to appear in France…
What is ethnic PR?
It’s to consider that there is today a parallel market to the grand public market, which is a communities market. It’s to accept the existence of a society made by multiple communities, with their own consumption modes, lifestyles, languages, ways of dressing up, leisure… It’s to acknowledge that each ethnic group has its way of consuming, and so communicate to them according to their desires and needs.
Stakes
Ethnic minorities represent in France 12 to 14 millions of people, so more than 20% of French population, according to crossed statistic data, as official national statistics about the topic are forbidden. It’s a very interesting purchasing power that we maybe shouldn’t neglect. There is a true demand from minorities that is not exploited by brands. There is a market and a need, so the natural temptation to answer them…
Source:
RESIS, Reseau d’information Strategique pour les Entreprises,
in Altema, le journal des tendances de la consommation, Dossier, Avril 2004.
(RESIS, Strategic Information Network for Companies,
In Altema, the consumption trends magazine, Feature, April 2004)
2 comments:
I believe there are not only ethnic minorities in France, evenif they've been obvious for a long time now, but also many groups of people, with no religious or ethnic similarities but simply the same tastes for many things.
I believe that religion and even ethnic origins are slowly but definitely decreasing their influence to define those groups.
There's no need to be a sociologist to notice that in a so-called catholic country like France, always less and less people go to the church, and that in the same time more and more people with foreign origins know less and less about them and sometimes more about french culture than someone whose family was there for centuries.
This means things are changing and we cannot relieve on basic cultural differences between people.
The best exemple for one of these new groups in France is the young people who enjoy dancing the tecktonik : same hair-do (you know what I mean), same way to dress (slim jeans), same music tastes (what's on MTV, mostly), same TV cultural references (if any), but with families that come from all over the world and with all the possible religions ! But those origins seem to matter less and less to them.
That's why I'd conclude this post by saying that there are not only ethnic PR but PR for every single of these "new groups", which will finally, according to me, progressively replace the "basic" (and a bit old-fashioned, to be honest) good old cultural and ethnic differences, and bring up new ethnies, with their own borrowed (and created !) cultural codes.
And that means many years of hard work for people in Marketing and PR !
I agree with you Skal, and I hope that soon brand new groups will replace ethnic ones, so this would hopefully decrease the risk of racism... But for now ethnic communities still have some common needs, for example for food or cosmetic (products for black people's hair etc). That's why in the USA or the UK ethnic communities are commonly targeted, as in these countries the approach to immigration is different... So the question is "how far can we do this in France, regarding our integration model"?
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