Exploring cultural duality among Asian American consumers

Lindsey Gano is an Account Supervisor at H/L who has been with the agency since 2021. Originally from Hawaii, she has grown up around various cultures and is always curious and intrigued by one’s complexities. At H/L, she has made her way up the Account Management ladder by managing client relationships and being a leader of her team. Lindsey has also been a part of the Multicultural practice at H/L serving as a consultative resource for the agency to ensure that we’re advocating for our consumers, our brands, and our peers.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

By the time someone is a participant in your focus group, they have already lived a whole life that impacts how they view the world and your brand. Our goal may be to identify how we gain a portion of their pockets today, but there may be a greater opportunity to win their hearts by understanding who they are and how that shapes their preferences. One perspective for exploration is their origin of birth and how that shapes their behaviors. At H/L, we began our journey to better represent our Asian consumers who identified as Filipino, Indian, or Chinese, by understanding how their country of origin is impactful.  In partnership with Sparkle Insights, which specializes in researching the U.S. Asian consumer, we sought to understand our Asian audience in their own words.

As a U.S.-based agency and clients with a U.S. focus, it’s understandable to view consumer behavior from a U.S.-born perspective, but we miss out on the complexity our multicultural consumers may be experiencing. In our research, we’ve seen that complexity surface as we saw that Asians who were born outside of the U.S. are still shaped by their roots and their core identity. Comparatively, those born in the U.S. at times struggle with that cultural duality.

Home is where the heart is for those not born in the U.S.

For those who were foreign-born, their identity is tied to their home country, with no doubt in their mind, regardless of time spent in the U.S. In their everyday lives, they surround themselves with their culture—whether that is befriending others with the same background, reading an in-language article about an event from their home country while having a cup of tea, or communicating on platforms heavily used back home like WeChat to see if their cousin enjoyed the American snacks they sent to them. Although they may have come to the U.S. to achieve the American dream, a bittersweet feeling lingers deep down that they try to satiate by maintaining pieces of their past. Nostalgia is an emotion they chase, and meet with open arms, and those cultural roots are proudly shown to those around them.

Complexity of American and Cultural Roots for U.S. Born Asians

U.S.-born Asians experience a dichotomy when it comes to their core identity as they struggle with embracing their Asian identity and their need to belong. Unlike their foreign-born counterparts, they are not surrounded by people who look like them but instead live in a melting pot of various cultures. They begin their journey of identifying where they fit in, and who accepts them, all while being brought up by parents who may be from a foreign land they have yet to know. This duality can inform how they view and interact with the world, a crucial thing to understand as marketers.

Cultural complexity calls for authentic representation

In this complexity lies the opportunity to win hearts. It may have been true in the past that those who immigrated to the U.S. had opted to blend into their new life by adopting American ideals and rejecting their heritage, but that behavior is changing quickly. Now, those with multicultural identities are making room in our society to celebrate their diversity, realizing their valuable contributions,  and expecting proper and authentic representation.  Brands recognizing their uniqueness is the bare minimum owed if we expect their consideration for choice and loyalty. That begins with in-depth qualitative research which allows us to weave in key information to our creative and media plan strategies. It can be as simple as making sure that your tailored messaging meets them where they already are, to developing partnerships that elevate their visibility and sense of value in society.

Recognition in mainstream media is the celebration of their complexity that becomes something they rally behind to support. The path to discovering how to achieve this is not easy, but opening our minds to be inclusive of a multicultural perspective becomes our greatest asset. As a business, we may place value on their buying power, but as a brand, we can show our multicultural audiences that their value makes our brands a stronger marketing proposition.