Shoestring Marketing: Newest census data illuminates realities of U.S. market

As the weeks go by, the Census Bureau continues the timed release of tantalizing tidbits about its 2000 count. The macro statistics are worth noting:

U.S. population now stands at 281.4 million.

The top 10 metro markets, or Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas, are in descending order: New York (21.2 million), Los Angeles (16.4 million), Chicago (9.2 million), Washington D.C./Baltimore (7.6 million), San Francisco (7 million), Philadelphia (6.2 million), Boston (5.8 million), Detroit (5.5 million), Dallas/Fort Worth (5.2 million) and Houston (4.7 million).

The fastest growing markets in the past decade were West Palm Beach (+7.79 percent), Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill (+7.45 percent), Denver (+6.77 percent), Atlanta (+6.61 percent), Dallas/Fort Worth (+6.36 percent) and Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point (+6.12 percent).

But it's the slicing and dicing of the numbers that reveals the true insights into the American makeup and who will constitute the upcoming power-buying classes in the near decades.

As expected, the dominant consumer class of the last 20 years, the Boomers, will carry their impact with them to retirement and the grave. Eighty-three million strong and all due to retire within the next 30 years, Boomers will drain the Social Security and Medicare systems, put onerous strain on the already suffering, highly inefficient health care system and continue to drive demand in many major consumer buying categories from travel to pharmaceuticals.

Who will foot the bill? Increasingly not the younger demographic. While the nation's median age rose during the last decade from 32.9 to 35.3, the important Gen X population (20 to 34) experienced shrinkage.

Fantasy land

To many a mainstream American, the nation dwells in a fantasy land comprised primarily of white Anglo-Saxons who are predominantly Protestant, living in a traditional, nuclear family with married, heterosexual parents and an average of 2.6 well-raised children with names like Biff and Scooter.

As recently noted in the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, the census data change (1990-2000) shows that nothing could be further from the truth. For example:

The number of married households has dropped from 55.1 percent in 1990 to 51.7 percent in 2000. Blame increasing divorce rates and marriage delays driven by career choice as the main reasons for the drop.

Households headed by females increased three times as fast as the traditional married-couple unit.

Female-headed households with children grew four times as fast as married households with children (under 18).

The number of people living alone increased almost 21 percent to more than 27 million.

The number of unmarried partners increased a staggering 72 percent.

What this means is that marketers must come to terms with the fact that the complexion of the U.S. consumer marketplace is made up of an increasingly fractionated mosaic where the traditional 1950s-like needs, values and behavior are not relevant or applicable. The once homogeneous consumer class is now a collection of fractious slivers that seeks "demassified" solutions to every need from political platforms to television viewing to automobile color, size and shape.

A nation of many hues

As demographers have already noted, many major cities and regions of the United States will ultimately possess majority populations comprised, in the aggregate, of non-white, non-Anglo- Saxon backgrounds. Again the census data proves revealing:

Hispanics totaled 35.3 million in 2000, 9 percent more than the Census Bureau had earlier estimated. In fact, the greater-than-expected increase in the Hispanic population was one of the major surprises of the 2000 census, according to the bureau. Incidentally, half of all Hispanics live in California and Texas with approximately 77 percent residing in those two states plus Florida, Illinois, Arizona and New Jersey.

The African-American population was reported at 34.7 million (a 3.1 percent increase).

Asian-Americans led the pack with an astounding 48 percent growth rate from 6.9 million in 1990 to 10.2 million in 2000. While Chinese form the largest Asian block at 2.4 million, the fastest growing Asian sub-set is comprised of people from the Indian Continent.

For marketers, what this means is that ethnicity is no longer a triviality to be addressed as an adjunct activity in the marketing mix when time and excess marketing funds permit. Today's small business marketer, in particular, must acknowledge and accept the fact that ethnicity and diversity in marketing and purchasing practice is now a mandatory consideration.

For the marketer, it will be wise to remember that the exception is fast becoming the norm.

(Alf Nucifora is an Atlanta-based marketing consultant.)