What a Trump Administration Means for the Ethnic Advertising Agency

Well you did it America! You finally made it through one of the most divisive and polarizing presidential elections of all-time. Traditional and social media's vast reach, our access to it, and the overload of information available at our fingertips took an emotional toll on the country.  As we sift through the rubble, return to our lives and begin to look around, we will begin to see some changes. The multicultural advertising world and the role of the ethnic ad agency is one of those areas where we will most certainly see them. 

Discover 5 Things To Consider When Choosing a Multicultural Advertising Agency

Economy

During a peacetime Republican presidential administration, we can expect to see a reduction in corporate taxes. Donald Trump, the private citizen, was a man who admitted to using corporate tax loopholes to grow his business. We can then safely assume that a President Trump will be a win for the nation's corporations and small businesses in heavily taxed industries. Historically, American demographics were very binary. We had a Caucasian, non-Hispanic majority with a slowly growing African-American minority populous. Today, the American demographic composition is far more diverse with a stable African American population, a declining white majority, with 1 in 6 Americans identifying as Hispanic and the greatest minority group under the age of 18 identifying as Asian American.

What it means: The latter's buying power will be the biggest prize in the next 4 to 8 years. Ethnic agencies will likely begin to see their revenue share's shift in the Asian-American consumer direction, as marketers begin to allocate more dollars toward accessing their buying power.  

Immigration

Trump’s victory hands the joysticks to the first anti-immigration president in the country's history. While his clarified post-convention position was to suggest only illegal immigration would be curtailed, it is safe to assume that even legal immigration will be adversely affected as well.  

What it means: On the surface one could suppose that the Trump wall and tighter immigration laws might keep more foreigners out and halt growth amongst Diasporas in the US. Brands would cease to see this as a growth sector for ad spending, right? We predict almost the opposite. Unless legislators can create a plan for legal low skilled jobs and its labor force, history shows that there will be an unintended consequence of illegal immigrants choosing to stay undocumented in America after making it across the border.  With American corporate purse strings loosened, investments in a the growing domestic brand of ethnic consumers will be necessitated to fill the void.  

Education

Earlier this year, the National Foundation for American Policy released a study illustrating that “Immigrants have started more than half (44 of 87) of America’s startup companies valued at $1 billion or more and are key members of management or product development teams in over 70 percent (62 of 87) of these companies.” Most of these entrepreneurs first entered the country with a student visa in an effort to obtain an education from a U.S. university.

What it means:  Many of the Nation's premier institutions of higher learning, will soon have a smaller pool of students upon which to choose from. During the last administration, the greatest competition was realized on the lower third of the higher educational system (municipal colleges, trade schools and for-profit-institutions)  Going forward, we can even expect to see the Ivy League Schools, who traditionally let their reputation speak for itself, will look to hire ethnic ad agencies in effort to compete in the growing domestic pool of multicultural students.

Law and Order

Not since the days of Richard Nixon has a candidate endeared himself more to the military and law enforcement.  In the wake of a spike in police envolved shootings, public backlash against law enforcement and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, Donald Trump positioned himself as the "Law and Order candidate."  This and other simple identifiers like "Crooked Hillary" and the "rigged system" helped frame his case and win him the election. 

What it means: Like with many things Trump, his message is polorizing.  Moving forward, police departments across the country will find it challenging to acheive diversity within the ranks and recruit within minority communities. We predict local and state municipalities will eventually need to turn to an ethnic advertising agency to help generate interest in the multicultural community.  Additionally, public relations campaigns dedicated towards healing the divide specifically amongst the African American community and Law Enforcement will become more prevailant.   

With all of our statistics, information, polls and advanced metrics, even the brightest minds in business couldn't accurately predict the winner of the 2016 Presidential election.  While experts in all industries, including ours, scramble to try to make sense of it all and predict what it will mean for business, recent history shows us, the margins of error are vast. Despite it all, the multicultural consumer in America is viable and her buying power is enticing.  The role of the ethnic advertising agency is one to watch in the next four to eight years ahead.