Wealth And Education Make Asians Prime Targets

"Sometimes only sales representatives from the same culture can relate to that really well because they themselves have gone through the same experience in America," says Niu, who quoted a Filipino producer of his acquaintance on this topic.

He told Niu: "My customers and I are from the same village back home. I know why they laugh and I know why they cry."

And thus, multicultural marketing can be seen to involve so much more than providing marketing materials in different languages, he says.

New York Life Vice President Jane Conti says financial services marketers should understand the various sub-segments that make up the Asian population and their sub-segments in America. "These tightly knit sub-segments have established strong resource networks based on shared language, values, interests, concerns and activities," Conti says.

Companies that exhibit an interest and actively participate in the life of their communities will gain an upper hand when it comes to winning their trust and business, she adds.

Chinese today account for about 20% of all Asian-Americans and have been one of the first markets that insurers focus on in this country. Although the Vietnamese market is small relative to some of the other Asian sub-segments, it is an important market for insurers to focus on because it is the fastest growing Asian segment, Conti says.

Due to high socio-economics, the U.S. Asian Indian market is another Asian sub-segment on which major insurers have focused their cultural marketing efforts. "Marketers agree that advertising to Asian Indian-Americans is best executed in English with cultural cues woven in seamlessly," Conti says.

Saul Gitlin, executive vice president for New York-based Kang & Lee advertising agency, says that while many industries such as travel and leisure and personal computers have ignored the Asian-American market, that certainly cannot be said of financial services.

And the reason is as simple as Willie Sutton's reply when asked why he robbed banks: It's where the money is.

Highest Median Income

"Asians have the highest median income of any group–almost $10,000 more than Caucasians," Gitlin says. "So, they are not just the most affluent among multicultural groups, they are among the most affluent of all segments of the population."

Chinese Americans also represent one of the fastest growing sectors of high-net- worth investors (at least $500,000 in investable assets) in the country, Gitlin says.

"So, what the insurance companies have learned is that Asians are taking larger policies and they will stay longer with a company," Gitlin says.

First-time life insurance buyers in the Asian-American community will more likely buy whole life immediately, rather than starting out with term.

"By virtue of these key demographic variables, the financial services industry has been scrambling to really get this right. They can be held up as one of the best examples in the category that is doing the right thing," he says.

Companies do not need to have any formal Asian-American outreach program for their producers to start their own.

Massachusetts Mutual financial advisor Yin Long, who is based in Bridgewater, N.J., spends her days and nights going to events of local Asian-American organizations where she will either be a featured speaker or just mingle with a card handy.

She finds generalizations about marketing to Asian-Americans problematic, and sometimes sees no reason why she should handle a walk-in if he is Asian.

College education and retirement funding have proved to be her most popular seminar topics.

Having spent her life in China throughout undergraduate school, Long is fluent in Chinese. But she finds that clients, even if they speak halting English, would prefer their presentations in English. "After all, we don't have any prospectuses in Chinese."