"Ethnic newspapers are underutilized. Studies have indicated that ethnic markets are extremely important in certain product categories--automotive, health care, entertainment, education--because their usage is higher than in the Anglo market." Jerry Gibbons, executive vice president of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, quoted in American Demographics, 11/01/01

Hear What Our Clients Are Saying

Since the placement of ads through All Communities Advertising Service, The September 11th Support Hotline received significantly more calls than in previous weeks. We are grateful for your hard work and flexibility in placing ads on short notice and responding to the deadline extension. You played an important part in helping us get the word out.
Joshua Gotbaum, CEO, September 11th Fund

This unique service made it possible for us to reach thousands of New Yorkers in a time of crisis with just one phone call.
Bob Kaplan, Director of Intergroup Relations and Community Concerns, Jewish Community Relations Council

The Young and the Restless: New ad placement service delivers all ethnic New York

It was a rough beginning. The consultant developing our new ad placement service for the ethnic press had been on the job a single week when planes dived into the World Trade Center. The new service, a project of the Independent Press Association-New York, had no joint rate card and no terms. But we had brought together the know-how to place ads in the ethnic press to get all New Yorkers affected by the attack vital emergency information, regardless of language or creed.

IPA-New York's All Communities Ad Service (allCAS) placed ads in 70 ethnic and community newspapers with $50,000 from the September 11th Fund, then another $25,000 from the American Jewish World Service. The ads were translated into 17 languages. Throughout November and December, we reached more than one million New Yorkers speaking Bangla, Urdu, Spanish, Cantonese, Albanian, Hebrew, and a range of other languages. When Safe Horizon and the September 11th Fund needed a new round of ads in February and March, allCAS was there.

The only organization that has ever embarked on a multicultural advertising effort on this scale was the U.S. Census Bureau, in its Census 2000 campaign.

AllCAS placed the September 11th ads in well-known publications like El Diario/La Prensa and the Amsterdam News, as well as dozens of newer immigrant newspapers like Pakistan Voice and Bangla Patrika. The ad's impact in even the smallest immigrant communities was our priority; we built our reach through our all-community, small-paper-inclusive strategy.

The September 11th Fund campaign was a great opportunity for allCAS to establish relationships with ad directors at New York City's ethnic publications. The long term benefit? AllCAS's ability to place ads on short notice and secure affordable ad rates for future campaigns.

Fast forward to early February 2002. AllCAS receives a new request from the September 11th Fund for ads informing immigrants about a rapidly approaching application deadline. Three weeks remain until the deadline; there's only a week to plan the campaign. AllCAS is faced with an extraordinary tactical challenge - plus, the ads have to be translated into 22 languages! Luckily for allCAS, newspapers responded with great compassion and agreed to place ads even after their deadlines. Several editors helped translate copy; layout departments even set type for free.

Though allCAS is a new ad placement service, we have proven our efficiency and responsiveness to a request that might have been impossible for other ad services. We're proud of the work we did. Not only did we achieve our mission to provide clients with a comprehensive and effective group buy, but we made sure over one million ethnic New Yorkers were not left alone in a time of great need.

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