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Australia’s ad industry: not racist, but…

Australia is at least 20 years behind the US and the UK in how ethnic minorities are portrayed in advertising, a Communications Council committee member has said.

Sheba Nandkeolyar, chair of the Communications Council’s multicultural committee, said advertising in Australia was “not as open” as other western markets to multicultural marketing, and was missing an opportunity to reach 47% of the population born – or born with a parent – overseas.

While Nandkeolyar said she didn’t consider the marketing community to be racist, she suspected that there was a hesitation to put “foreign faces” in ads because brands fear they may alienate their core Australian target market.

She added that the low exposure of non-white Australians in ads could be due to the low numbers of these ethnic minorities in ad agencies. She estimates that only 5-7% of Australia’s ad industry comes from an ethnic background.

“I know many people from top tier agencies in Asia who are unable to get good jobs here. They’re usually told that they don’t know the local market,” she said.

Australia’s two fastest growing ethnic groups are Chinese and Indians, but despite hailing from two of the world’s boom economies, they are largely ignored by Australian marketers who do not see value in targeting them, she said.

“Chinese and Indian immigrants are increasingly brand aware, they are educated, professional and earning well. They will always be big on saving and sending money home, but they are buying cars and houses just like everyone else.”

Translating an ad is “not enough” to resonate with ethnic consumers, and more work needed to go into segmenting audiences, she added.

“Just throwing in a chopstick doesn’t mean that an ad becomes relevant to Asians. You should either do it well, or not at all. Only a few get it right by putting the right cultural cues in ads that will generate a response to a call to action.”

Australia is “20 years behind” the US and the UK in how ethnic minorities are portrayed in advertising, she said. “In Sydney, 36% of people speak another language other than English. In Melbourne that proportion is 32%. But you wouldn’t know it to watch ads in these cities,” she said.

Nandkeolyar’s comments come a month after an executive at multi-cultural TV and radio network UBI World TV complained that Australian marketers are “not talking to” a market with $73 billion in spending power.

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