The case for incorporating network theory into ethnic marketing

Ethnic diversity within advanced economies provides opportunities for marketing strategies based on ethnicity. Although frameworks proposing the use of ethnicity are found in the literature, they pay scant attention to the network foundations of ethnic groups and how the network can be used to market to the group. Focus on a group’s network can provide a preliminary assessment of ethnic group substantiality and robustness, while analysis of the social and economic ties of the network can guide the development of a targeting strategy. A review of the reasons for segmenting based on ethnicity is followed by an examination of the issues related to using ethnicity as the primary segmentation dimension. Inadequacies in frameworks for ethnic marketing are then raised as a justification for using network analysis, in particular measuring the social capital of the group. The Portuguese community in Sydney is used to illustrate the argument