• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, May 30, 2004

Similarities and Differences Among Black, Hispanic and White Consumers

Whites, Blacks and Hispanics have more in common than differences when it comes to retail shopping behaviors, according to a special analysis of over 12,000 respondents to BIGresearch's newest Simultaneous Media Usage survey. However, media usage is much more divergent among these groups.

Joe Pilotta, Ph.D., Vice President of Research at BIGresearch, said "When marketers address Blacks or Hispanics strictly by demographics or socio-economic indicators, they automatically view them as being different from the norm. However, actual shopping behaviors... show that the similarities and differences are two sides of the same coin, not opposites. While each group shops most often at Wal-Mart for men's and women's clothing, a much higher percentage of Blacks and Hispanics shop for health and beauty aides at Walgreens and CVS."

However, when it comes to media usage, Blacks, Hispanics and Whites have more differences than commonalities. "One commonality is that Blacks, Hispanics and Whites each choose radio as the background media of choice when using other media," said Pilotta, "but when it comes to the cable networks each watch, there are few similarities."

Top 5 Cable Networks for Consumer Groups

Blacks	Hispanics	Whites
BET	TV Land	Discovery
Lifetime	TNT	USA
TNT	USA	TNT
USA	Discovery	History Channel
Pay Cable Channels	Pay Cable Channels	Lifetime

"Marketers who automatically place consumers in silos run the risk of 'minoritizing' certain ethnic groups and may miss the continuous changes in tastes that are occurring," said Pilotta.

You can find complimentary top line findings here.