CONTENTS

Does Advertising Effectiveness Vary over Time?

Editor’s Notes

Manager’s Viewpoint

Asymmetric Response to Advertising

Director’s Corner

Next Meeting

Manager's Viewpoint

by Rick Naczi
Chief Executive Officer,
American Dairy Association and Dairy Council

The Challenge of Greater Efficiency

The dairy industry is currently going through very dramatic changes. The most notable of these trends is the consolidation of the fluid processing industry through mergers and acquisitions. One of the byproducts of this trend is a greater emphasis on national or multi-regional dairy promotion programs. The driver behind this emphasis is generally some measure of efficiency such as cost per thousand people reached or savings on administrative costs. I am a firm believer in wringing as much inefficiency as possible out of our promotion organizations, but I am concerned that often times the casualty of this single minded approach to marketing is effectiveness. I do not believe that “bigger is always better,” and I have always believed that “one size fits all” does not fit anyone very well.

American Dairy Association and Dairy Council Inc. (ADADC), is the regional dairy promotion agency that covers New York, northern New Jersey and northeastern Pennsylvania. We are fortunate to have the New York City market as our largest DMA, and this media market affords us a number of buying efficiencies. The demographic mix in New York City also presents ADADC with a great number of challenges. The population in the New York Metropolitan area includes 23.5 percent Hispanics, 22.4 percent African Americans, and 6.8 percent Asians. These quickly-growing consumer markets have very distinct consumption patterns and even language challenges in the case of the Hispanic and Asian groups. Due to this diversity, ADADC must make some adjustments in our media and marketing programs. On average, Hispanics watch 15.25 hours of Spanish language television per week and 10.15 hours of English language television. ADADC has offered Spanish language television creative to our New York City market for over 10 years. Language is also a problem with direct translation from our Anglo campaigns. The very popular “got milk?” trademark literally translates as “I am lactating” in Spanish.

Product usage is also unique between different cultures. New York City Hispanics consume large quantities of milk in their coffee and are much more likely to consume cheese with breakfast. In order to properly serve these consumer groups, we must make a concerted effort to understand these culturally - specific consumption patterns. The other challenge is that although many marketers tend to classify Hispanics as a homogeneous group of consumers, there are dramatic differences between Hispanics of different countries of origin. The dominant country of origin for the New York market is Puerto Rico. This group of consumers differs greatly along some behavioral lines from Mexican or Cuban consumers. These cultural differences make the creation of programs and materials for the Hispanic market almost impossible at the national level. We need to keep in mind that efficiently reaching consumers with the wrong message will not sell more milk. We must target our consumers appropriately and continue to gain insight into the consumption patterns of our best customers. Anything that the researchers associated with NICPRE can do to expand our knowledge base will be greatly appreciated.