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Toying with Demographics
August 10, 2008
I continue to be fascinated by the shift in the American demographic landscape and what it means and will continue to mean for Toy Nation. In a August 7, 2008 New York Times article, “Census Data Show Minorities Often a Majority of the Population under 20” we learn that “[r]acial and ethnic minorities now account for 43 percent of Americans under 20. Among people of all ages, minorities make up at least 40 percent of the population in more than one in six of the nation’s 3,141 counties.
Though minorities now make up one-third of the US population, we in Toy Nation need to be concerned with that under 20 population and what that means for us in terms of our products, our packaging and our message. This shift in the U.S. population, however, is just part of the bigger equation for those who market globally.
Why? It’s because, for starters, the Chinese and Indian markets are growing in terms of head counts and disposable income. Smart manufacturers are going to follow the lead of Pepsi, Coke and other global players and reap the rewards of the exponentially greater revenues that will come from selling these new (at least to us) consumers.
Maybe its time to take a hard look at our products and packaging and think whether the consumer we see in our heads is the one who is out their doing the shopping. We may be surprised what we learn about our products, our consumers and ourselves.
Posted by Richard Gottlieb on August 10, 2008 | Comments (0)
