Asian American women are embracing new products, trends and experiences. For instance, they over index on travel to the Middle East, Latin America and Canada as compared to non-Hispanic white women. They are fast to adopt new technologies, particularly apps that are popular with Millennials, such as Snapchat for social, Venmo for digital wallet and Waze for navigation. Their love of discovery is also true in music, with Asian American women subscribing to online music services 30% more than the total population.
In this report, Nielsen’s fifth on Asian American consumers, new insights are revealed about this young, emerging consumer force in America. Different from multicultural, which refers to a society that contains several cultural or ethnic groups, Asian American women are intercultural, which describes a deep understanding and affinity for all cultures. With 26% of Asian American women marrying outside the Asian community, they are creating biracial families and showing new preferences for what they eat, watch and how they use technology.
For marketers and advertisers, this combination of youth, digital fluency and an intercultural mindset, makes Asian American women a powerful consumer segment. The recent Korean beauty phenomenon is a perfect example of Asian American women’s digital influence. What began as passionate consumers posting on social channels, exploded into magazines and has ultimately influenced store shelves.
Deep Cultural Influence in the Grocery Store
Although 82% of Asian American women say they enjoy trying different types of foods, 67% agree cultural heritage is an important part of who they are, and 69% agree that their children continuing their family’s traditions is important to them. So, it follows that an Asian American woman’s shopping cart often contains traditional foods from her ancestral homeland. Asian food products that were traditionally available only at Asian specialty stores are now available at select mainstream grocery stores. And this trend is expected to continue as other races and ethnicities in the U.S. develop more discerning tastes as this country continues to become more multicultural.
