Word: desis
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...make an advertising message culturally relevant, says Saul Gitlin, executive vice president at Kang & Lee Advertising, you have to do more than toss a desi face into a commercial. Values such as education, hierarchy and status are unshakable for desi families, even if modified to reflect American lifestyles. "There's a core belief in higher education and studying and saving," says Phil Salis, vice president of consumer marketing at MetLife, which has created desi-specific television advertising to run on satellite channels such as ZEE TV, B4U, Sony TV and TV Asia. He's not kidding: 64% of Indians...
...more important role than it does with the general public. "Word of mouth is huge," says Lakshmi Bhargave, 25, a graphic artist in Chicago. "We have this theory that between Indians, it's more like two degrees of separation rather than the usual six." So firms show up at desi events and subtly introduce the message: We're a part of your community too. Wells Fargo sponsored a Bollywood concert in Cupertino, Calif., in June, setting up a table in the lobby and dispensing brochures touting its new money-transfer service to India, an initiative aimed at stealing business from...
...first glance, that might seem fairly simple. Unlike Hispanics and other Asian minorities, South Asians often arrive fluent in English. The influence may be more British than it is American--cricket is preferred to baseball--but a desi in the U.S. can still pick up USA Today and understand...
...took Hispanic marketers 20 years to convince media executives that there was a case for targeting Hispanics, and today people like Vimal Verma, chairman and CEO of American Desi, a satellite network that launched earlier this year, are engaged in a similar campaign for South Asians. He hopes what many in the industry do: if the entertainment platform is built, the advertising dollars will follow...
That's what the folks back at MTV are banking on too. "If you wanted to reach young South Asians, there hasn't been a branded, credible platform," says Nusrat Durrani, senior V.P. and general manager of MTV World. Voilą MTV Desi, which should air nationally in July. After Jay Sean's interview, he sticks around to pose for photographs with fans. "To me, it's been a long time coming," the singer says between autographs. "There is a massive market out there." Sean, an artist and an entrepreneur, pauses and then continues, "We make up one-fifth...