Ross Fadner at MediaDaily News reports on a study of the reading patterns and technology usage by people various racial categories.
Surprisingly, the results show that high tech device ownership, while highly correlated with income, does not alone explain users likelihood to own devices. Factors like having children and being motivated by entertainment also play a large role. For example, even though they make $16,000 less on average than Whites, Hispanics are more likely to purchase entertainment-based devices like MP3 players, video game consoles, and digital video camcorders.
Results show that African Americans and Hispanics respond more positively to advertising than Whites and Asians. In fact, Whites rated very low in all areas of advertising receptiveness, and Asians not much higher.
This is interesting because the mantra of marketing is “go where the money is” when it really needs to be “go where the buyers are.”
(Not that any of us worry about such things from our exalted towers of editorial indifference, mind you.)