Mining the minority audience

By Thomas K. Arnold, Special for USA TODAY

Just as the movie studios are reaching out to diverse markets, home-video marketers are aggressively going after black and Latino audiences.
Gospel, with Clifton Powell, arrives Tuesday, a couple of weeks ahead of MLK Jr. Day, Jan. 16.
Screen Gems

The DVD business is 8 years old, and its once-explosive growth is tapering to single digits, so new markets are crucial to the home-viewing business. And minorities are heavy consumers of home entertainment, says Universal's Ken Graffeo.

"According to our research, while Caucasians purchased an average of 8.8 DVDs during the past six months, Latino Americans purchased an average of 13.1 DVDs, and African-Americans purchased an average of 12.8 DVDs during that same time frame," Graffeo says.
At Universal and Warner, executives have created multicultural divisions to market mainstream movies to minorities. Graffeo notes that the Latino market is growing so fast that marketing campaigns are focusing on these consumers.

"Latinos in the United States represent north of $700 billion in (overall) purchasing power," he says. "It is forecast that by 2010, this figure will increase to $1 trillion."
Similarly, he said, "the African-American market currently represents $650 billion in purchasing power and is on track to exceed $850 billion by 2010."

'Faith market' makes its mark

With the emerging success of multicultural markets, faith-oriented movie fans are considered another lucrative niche. 20th Century Fox has a new division that focuses on audiences seeking movies with a message as well as family-friendly fare.
Buoyed by its success in 2004 marketing DVDs of The Passion of the Christ through churches and religious groups, Fox has launched a Web site, www.foxfaith.com.
The site promotes not just religious titles in the Fox catalog such as The Bible but also films and shows that might appeal to the same audience, from The Sound of Music to Strawberry Shortcake videos.

The Passion "certainly gave us our MBA in the faith market," Fox's Steve Feldstein says. "We've created this Web site as a one-stop resource for families and organizations seeking information about quality, all-audience programming."

— Thomas K. Arnold
DVD advertising on networks that cater to minorities, such as Univision and BET, is increasing, as are promotions on radio stations that target these markets.
"We go where the audience is," says 20th Century Fox's Steve Feldstein, whose studio has staged grassroots campaigns in urban markets for the martial arts movie Ong-Bak and Woman, Thou Art Loosed, based on Bishop T.D. Jakes' self-help book.

Gospel, about an R&B singer who returns home after his pastor father falls ill, arrives on DVD today, timed to take advantage of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday on Jan. 16. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is running commercials for Gospel on black cable channels.
For the release Jan. 17 of Sueño, about a Mexican singer who comes to Los Angeles to seek a music career, Sony Pictures is doing radio promotions and DVD giveaways in such key Latino markets as Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Dallas and San Diego.

Latinos are of particular interest to studios because of the growth of the Latino population in the USA. More DVDs are coming to market with Spanish subtitles and language tracks. "Virtually all our films have them," Fox's Feldstein says.

Independent suppliers such as Ventura Entertainment and Xenon Pictures are releasing on DVD movies and telenovelas (TV soap operas) imported from Mexico, Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. Buena Vista Home Entertainment creates Spanish-language packaging for its major animated family titles.

One of the most aggressive suppliers targeting Latinos is Ventura Entertainment. Unlike the major studios, which promote mainstream movies to Latino audiences, Ventura's Studio Latino division offers films and programs in Spanish.

Since launching Studio Latino in 2003, "our business has doubled each year, and while we expect the growth to level off as the market begins to mature, we still expect double-digit growth in 2006," says Ventura's Gordon Prend.