Emerging Markets: From Public Relations to Practical Remedies

Beginning of article

At the end of this August or in early September, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data for 2006 will be released by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), detailing much of the home mortgage lending activity conducted in the United States. These are the most frequently used data for analyzing lending patterns in various ethnic and racial communities.

Shortly thereafter, various consumer advocacy groups will likely release their own analyses of the data--probably criticizing mortgage lenders about the disparity in home mortgage lending between whites and minorities. Mortgage industry spokespersons will then counter these accusations and question their methodology, contending that after accounting for important factors such as income and credit, there is no significant disparity.

Maybe 2007 is the year for the various parties to take a different approach. After all, the predictable pattern of attack and counterattack is a marketing communications nightmare. And given the recent problems in the subprime market and its portrayal in the media, a shift in the overall marketing communications strategy--specifically in its public relations--is certainly in order.

Emerging-markets recap

To begin the shift, let's quickly review emerging-markets marketing and history. In marketing, the four P's (product, price, place and promotion) are widely accepted as the marketing mix for positioning any given product or service. The mortgage industry to date seems to have given most consideration to product as the best way to market to emerging-markets customers. Products will always be important. But the industry needs to start investing more resources and efforts in promotion, or in how it communicates with emerging markets.

Promotion represents all the …