Cultural relevance and sensitivity are key issues that American companies have to tackle as they tap into the fast-growing ethnic population in the United States, said Bill Imada, chairman of Los Angeles-based Imada Group. The agency, which, specializes in Asian language advertising, has seen meaningful growth as more American firms look for better approaches to ethnic customers whose cultures, habits, tastes and traditions have long been unexplored territory for corporate America. A rapid expansion of ethnic groups in the United States has shifted more advertising dollars toward consumers whose mother tongue is not English.
Over 11 percent of the American population were foreign-born. Among them, more than 21 million speak English "less than well," according to the Census data for 2000. Of all the things that distinguish immigrants from the folks in their adopted country, language seems to be the easiest one to surmount. Yet it’s not always easy to find an equivalent expression in a foreign language. It is tough to explain "energy conservation" to someone, whose language does not contain a proper word for "electricity". Cultural difference rather than language has emerged as the crucial issue.