Why Marketers Should Utilize ‘Perceived Similarity’ in Target Marketing

Nowadays, companies and brands utilize distinct digital marketing strategies not only in the global market but also in the local America market for their target marketing campaigns. For instance, as a critical Asian population lives in the Bay Area, Toyota targeted its audiences locally on social media using various languages in its target ads. Also, Citi Bank and Wells Fargo address Asian community and Hispanic community by frequently using Asian and Hispanic models and language characters in their advertising campaigns in the Bay Area as well to attract their target customers by the strategy of “perceived similarity.”

Even it’s web 2.0 digital age, as a digital marketer who always believes in “human connections,” I think it’s also essential to humanize your brand in your marketing. Digital marketers should also develop a marketing strategy from the foundational knowledge of culture and communications.“People buy from your person, not from your company.” No matter what industry, once your customers feel connected with your brand, either by the brand story or your brand mission, or even just the customer model in your advertising, they will pay more attention to your marketing campaigns. So you have more opportunities to drive higher customer growth. Hence, today, we will explore the strategy of “perceived similarity” in digital marketing from both communication and culture perspectives.

What is ‘Perceived Similarity’

By the development of immigrants, the U.S. markets are not only focused on mainstream Caucasian consumers but also other ethnic groups. Also, some new businesses which come from another culture become more popular for local American as well, such as Yoga, Salsa, Kungfu, Traditional Chinese Medicine. As one example, Traditional Chinese Medicine is a trending treatment for people who believe in Eastern nature health ways. According to the scholars' studies, for cross-cultural businesses, it’s critical to target and builds relationships with ethnic minorities by racial targeting cues that can perceive similarity with themselves.

In the process of creating targeted advertisements, a single large market is divided into separate segments by a variety of variables. The more personally meaningful the variable is, the more likely that the customers can feel the similarity with the source. As those businesses which are from ethnic minorities, their target audiences are divided into distinct ethnic groups. Because similarity with the source can drive favorable target market effects for distinctive viewers, advertisers can consider paying particular attention to the selection of sources in ads that have the most impact on the intended target segment.

'Ethnic identity' is defined as a person’s knowledge of his or her membership in a social group and the value and emotional significance attached to that membership. Secure ethnic identifiers should display attitudes and behaviors that are consistent with the core cultural values (e.g., customs, language, dress, foods, religion, product use, and media use) of their ethnic group. Consumers who prefer strong ethnic identity tend to advertisements and other media that include these cultural values. In contrast, weak racial identifiers should demonstrate less preference for ads and other media that depict their cultural values.

Similarly, the strength of ethnic identification has shown the influence of purchase behavior. Advertisements that contain cultural cues, which refer to the values, symbols, ethics, rituals, traditions, material objects, and services, are likely to heighten consumers’ sense of ethnic identity and their appreciation for advertisements.

Based on the studies, one significant cue of similarity between a viewer and the character in an advertisement is a race. Regarding one research I conducted with traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) center in Silicon Valley, one Asian model and some Eastern elements in this TCM health center’s ad can make Asian customers identify more similarities with the cultural embeddedness in marketing, attracting more Asian consumers’ interests. However, as one minority ethnic group business, the Traditional Chinese Medicine business marketers could not target all Asian population with the same advertising message, because it consists of many ethnic subgroups that differ in language, culture, and length of residence.

However, as the differences of native language and length of residence in America, compared to Asian immigrants, Asian-American perceived themselves more similarity to the low Asian culturally embedded ad than the high Asian culturally embedded ad, which was also found by my research. Moreover, culture varies in the extent to which health and information are explicit in low-context culture and implicit in a high-context culture. That’s the reason that people in different ethnic groups have distinct interests in topics and demands for social media, which can also contribute to digital marketer’s audience segmentation strategy.

Single ‘Culture Symbol’ v.s. Rich ‘Cultural Embeddedness’

Moreover, without rich cultural cues in the advertisement, a unique symbol (such as only the language character) can’t make a significant interaction between participants and the “cultural embeddedness” in the ad. Based on my research’s results for the TCM center I mentioned, distinct ethnic groups indicate a variety of appreciations in English, Chinese, and bilingual (English & Chinses) versions. In contrast, within rich cultural embeddedness that includes race, symbols, rituals, material objects together, participants show their high appreciations of the similarity with the ads.

With rich cultural cues, people have a higher appreciation of the top cultural embeddedness ad that perceived the similarity to their ethnicity. Hence, in target marketing, customers should be divided into distinct ethnic groups by courting minority segments so that they can pay attention to the advertisements that they can feel more similarities with the source which can include the core cultural values (e.g., customs, language, dress, foods, religion, product use, and media use) of their ethnic group.

Thus, from the cross-cultural communication perspective, companies should target and build relationships with ethnic minorities by differing racial targeting cues. For example, Asian models and eastern cultural elements in the targeted ads to the Asian community, or Hispanic models and Latino cultural aspects in the targeted advertisements to Hispanic/Latino community, by adopting the characters and cultural clues of each group.

The Relations between Culture and Social Media Platform

By the development of technology, social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, provides numerous audience segments to target different groups of customers. Digital marketers can help brands design distinct versions of a marketing campaign on Facebook and Instagram page, with distinctive “cultural embeddedness” in race, symbol, ritual and material objects together by attracting attention broadly from all ethnic groups.

At the same time, the words of those messages should be applied explicitly to low-context culture or high-context culture according to the target ethnic group. Based on the features of each social media platforms, we can use Facebook as the platform for the high-context-culture community as they like more narrative story-telling communication (“persuasive rhetoric”), such as eastern culture groups. While Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube can be good fits for marketing low-context culture communities that like pure visual rhetoric (western groups). Besides, not only this “cultural embeddedness” works for social media in digital marketing but also can work in the content and visual creations for the other channels such as email campaign, display.

In one word, for marketers in cross-cultural businesses, they can divide customers into distinct ethnic groups by courting minority segments in social media marketing. Hence, they can attract customers’ attention to the advertisements that they can feel more similarities with the source that can include the core cultural values (e.g., customs, language, dress, foods, religion, product use, and media use) of their ethnic group. The communications of cross-cultural businesses can be in both logical connections which can provide detailed instructions and professional knowledge sharing and story-telling communication with those details that can make customers feel the empathy of the brand. The grateful customers are more likely to generate favorable responses, which are related to higher purchasing intentions.

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