Big Business Selling Out -- to Asians

Mickey D's trademarks the phrase "I am Asian," promising a bittersweet new era of big-time APA-targeted marketing

By Gil Asakawa, NikkeiView

May 16, 2004 - McDonald's, the world's largest food retailer, is reaching out to Asian Americans. And I say, it's about damned time.

For the Lunar "Chinese" New Year in February, the company launched a marketing campaign that includes Asian-themed placemats and packaging, plus a  Web site that proudly proclaims: "I am Asian!"

In fact, Mickey D's is so proud of their campaign to reach Asians that they trademarked the slogan, "I am Asian."

I think this is both a good thing and a bad thing.

The bad part is, the Web site is earnest to the point of being over-eager. It feels like a pitch from a used car dealer, a little bit sleazy, a lot garish. And can you really trademark a phrase like "I am Asian?"

Which isn't to say that the site doesn't have its good points.

The site has a section that celebrates Asian Pacific Islander culture with pages that list various holidays for each of 11 groups, from Japanese, Chinese and Korean to Laotian, Pakistani and Thai. There's also a section with links to "Asian and Pacific Islander Americans who have made a difference," but when you click on any of the links, instead of getting "The 20 most inspiring Asian sports stars in America" or "The 50 most inspiring Asian Americans of all time" you get a different page with a link out to a list on the Goldsea Web site.

That's a great deal for Goldsea (assuming a lot of people find the McDonald's Asian site), but it's a bit deflating to realize that the company cares about Asians but couldn't take the time to research its own list of notable Asians. The Web site ends up feeling sort of phony, just a seasonal marketing ploy, not a sincere effort to build a new customer base.

Like it or not, I predict this is the cutting edge of a slew of marketing campaigns by major companies aimed at Asian Pacific Americans. Why?

According to census figures, Asian Americans are the fastest-growing population in the country, with a 48-percent growth between 1990 and 2000 census (Vietnamese and South Asian Indians are the largest immigrant communities). By 2020 there will be more than 22 million Asian Americans.

And here's the pot of gold at the end of the Asian rainbow: We're better educated on average than other groups; we hold more professional jobs (with higher average salaries than Caucasians) and we're more likely to be technologically skilled than other groups. We spend over $250 billion every year, and we're brand conscious. Plus studies show that Asian Americans spend more money online than any other ethnic group. So, why wouldn't McDonald's court us?

Why wouldn't any company target us with their marketing, advertising, public relations and media?

Why instead are Asian Americans practically invisible to the "mainstream" media and are still subjected more often than not to the moronic stereotyping and low-rent racism that we suffered a generation or two ago: "ching-chong Chinaman" jokes and taunting, ignorant remarks about how well we speak English, and racist caricatures on everything from t-shirts to cartoons. People couldn't get away with this stuff about other ethnic groups anymore.

It's partly because Asian culture - everything from feng shui to pho, sushi to Buddhism - are hip today, but not Asian people.

Ask a typical American to name Asian movie stars and they'll come up with Jet Li and Jackie Chan, but not Jason Scott Lee or Tamlyn Tomita (I know from experience, I've mentioned her recently to a bunch of friends, and though every Asian knows who she is, every Caucasian didn't). They might stumble and go, "Uh, who's that guy who played the soda shop owner on 'Happy Days' and was Mr. Miyagi in the 'Karate Kid' movies?" That would be Noriyuki "Pat" Morita.

So any mainstream marketing that's aimed at people like me, that shows people like me to the rest of America, is cool. Now, the challenge is to make it sincere and believable.

When my family moved to the U.S. way back in 1966, McDonald's had just sold millions of hamburgers, not the gazillions it's sold today. The company had not yet introduced the notion of American fast-food to Japan, where "fast-food" still meant tiny noodle shops or carts by train stations selling grilled fish and hearty country-style stews.

And, McDonald's commercials - like commercials by every other American company selling everything from toothpaste and kids' cereals to cars and cigarettes (yeah, they had TV commercials for cigarettes back then) - only featured white people. Happy, well-adjusted, middle-class white people, right out of "Leave it to Beaver" or "The Dick van Dyke Show."

Blacks were only visible in marketing as stereotypes, beaming from boxes of "Cream of Wheat" or Aunt Jemima's syrup. The one Hispanic image I have of that time is the Frito Bandito, the scruffy-looking cartoon character who stole Fritos from white folks in commercials from the late '60s. The only Asian reference I remember from back then was the commercials for Hai Karate cologne, in which a geeky white guy had to use karate to fight off the women (white women) who swarmed all over him after using the product.

Thank god advertising has evolved in a few decades to reflect at least a little more of what the real world's like. You wouldn't' see a Frito Bandito today, and there are lots of African Americans on commercials, not just talking to other blacks but to everyone. I found it notable that State Farm Insurance now has a black spokesman in its TV commercials - they aired on the "Friends" finale, which ironically is about the whitest sitcom on the tube.

There are more Asian faces on commercials now too, so we can start to feel included when companies pitch their products. I chuckle every time I see Parry Shen, the star of the dark and angry independent APA film "Better Luck Tomorrow," playing an Asian phone support dude (of course!) in commercials for Dell computers.

As far as I know, McDonald's "I am Asian" Web site is the first time a major company has launched a Web marketing campaign aimed at us. Even if the results fall short, I applaud them for doing it, and welcome future efforts by other companies.

It's all part of swimming in the mainstream.

Readings of Interest

• http://www.i-am-asian.com
• http://www.goldsea.com