During the month of Ramadan (August 21 – September 19), the U.S. Army 1st Brigade has launched a poster distribution campaign to recruit Arabic translators. For effective results and with a focused effort, the U.S. Army chose to disregard traditional ad placements and take a more personal route. The posters are in Arabic and even include a traditional Ramadan greeting.
You will find posters in the windows of local shops while walking the streets of Paterson, NJ; Brooklyn, NY; Fairfax, VA and other locales densely populated with Arab Americans. These ethnic stores are an integral part of the community; a place to see familiar faces and buy cultural cuisine. It’s great that the U.S. Army 1st Brigade recognizes the importance of these communities and the heavy presence of these retail shops.
Such a distribution campaign is a perfect way to reach out to ethnic communities. There are alternative ways, such as inserting flyers in the in-language newspapers, but hanging a poster in the store is noticeable, attractive and personal. Many of these ethnic communities are concentrated in or near cities, so it’s also likely a customer seeing the poster in one store will see it again in another nearby shop—creating more exposure, higher readership, and a longer-lived message.
Allied Media Corp. provides this service across many ethnic communities including Arab-Americans, Polish-Americans and Russian-Americans. If you’d like to know more about distribution campaigns or ethnic communications in general, check out: www.allied-media.com
If you have interest in becoming a translator for the U.S. Army, visit the website: www. GoArmy.com/translate
Remember: advertising, outreach and recruitment to minorities is most successful when you incorporate a cultural awareness of your audience!
