• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, September 11, 2012

In the world of digital media, marketers turn to company and product Web sites first when communicating with multicultural customers.
 
That’s according to new research just completed by the Association of National Advertisers to help understand how marketers are and ought to be using newer media platforms to reach multicultural consumers.
 
In a blog entry posted today on the ANA site, Bill Duggan, group executive vice president at the association, declared that the research is important “since multicultural customers have been the earliest adopters of digital technology. The growth rate for multicultural audiences has outpaced the general market.”
 
The research will be presented in detail at the ANA’s Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference next month.
 
The research analyzed 18 newer media platforms and company Web sites ranked as the top platform to engage multicultural customers. Duggan didn't specify in his blog the other media platforms that were analyzed and couldn't be immediately reached for follow-up questions.
 
Marketers indicated that among newer media platforms for targeting multicultural audiences, Web sites will get the most spending in 2012, noted Duggan. In large part, that’s due to the fact that sites are deemed most effective by marketers for reaching multicultural customers.
 
A majority of marketers -- 63% -- said they used in-language sites to reach their U.S.-based multicultural customers, with 59% indicating they deploy a Spanish-language Web site for that purpose. Twenty-two percent of the marketers polled indicated their companies have an Asian-language Web site.
 
When it comes to reaching multicultural consumers, concluded Duggan, for marketers, “Web sites are front and center.”