Marketing to Muslims

Muslims’ biggest gripe with advertising is that it doesn’t acknowledge their existence: A high 71 percent of Muslims (vs. 34 percent of the general sample) agreed that “Advertisers rarely show anybody of my faith/ethnicity in their advertising,” and 72 percent said that if they felt advertisers generally wanted or appreciated the business of Muslims, they would pay more attention to ads.

The New York Times already picked up on the story, playing it on the front of the business section Saturday:

Consumer companies and advertising executives are focusing on ways to use the cultural aspects of the Muslim religion to help sell their products.

Grocers and consumer product companies are considering ways to adapt their goods to Muslim rules, which forbid among other things, gelatin and pig fat, which is often used in cosmetics and cleaning products. Retailers are looking into providing more conservative skirts, even during the summer months, and mainstream advertisers are planning to place some commercials on the satellite channels that Muslims often watch.

Marketing to Muslims carries some risks. But advertising executives, used to dividing American consumers into every sort of category, say that ignoring this group — estimated to be about five million to eight million people, and growing fast — would be like missing the Hispanic market in the 1990s.

Shaheen Magsi, a college senior., who told the paper she was tired of explaining that she didn't agree with Osama bin Laden (though a report last week found most Muslims outside the U.S. have "mixed feelings" about al Qaeda), said it would be refreshing to see Muslim-focused advertising.

“It’d be really good to say, ‘Oh, there’s a Muslim on TV, and they’re portraying something good other than Muslims killing people,’ ” she said.