The Impact of Cultural Symbols and Spokesperson Identity on Attitudes and Intentions

Abstract

In today’s multicultural societies, ethnic targeting is increasingly important for marketing. Two main approaches to target ethnic minorities have emerged: messaging consumers when their ethnic identity is most salient, and featuring spokespeople who have the same heritage as the target. We conduct replications of two articles representative of these research streams: Forehand and Deshpandé (2001) and Deshpandé and Stayman (1994). Our findings identify generational status as an important boundary condition for these ethnic targeting strategies.

Keywords: advertising, ethnicity, identity, minority targeting