NEW YORK CITY -- Kang & Lee Advertising has been ranked as the top multicultural agency specializing in the Asian American Market by Advertising Age in their 58th annual Agency Report.

Led by President and CEO Eliot Kang, Kang & Lee Advertising has been at the forefront of  the Asian American advertising, marketing and communications industry for over 16 years.  Since we opened shop in 1985, our primary goal was to educate advertisers about the bottom-line value of marketing to Asian Americans, said Kang.  It's been a long journey, but I'm glad that more and more product categories and companies are now throwing their hat in the ring.  Their enlightenment has brought them incremental sales and business opportunities which, in turn, has enabled the Asian multicultural communications industry to flourish.

According to recent Census results, 11.9 million Asian Americans currently reside in the United States, concentrated around major urban areas like New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles.  Largely comprised of six major segments (Chinese American, Filipino American, South Asian American, Vietnamese American, Korean American and Japanese American), advertisers are often intimidated by the idea of trying to reach such a diverse group of people.  Kang & Lee functions as a bridge between advertisers and the market,  said Cynthia Park, Executive Vice President and Managing Partner at Kang & Lee.  In this role, we pride ourselves on our insight and ground-breaking creative work to deliver the most effective, cost-efficient and culturally relevant communications.

Over the years, Kang & Lee has worked for many prestigious and challenging clients, with the recent US Census 2000 program as one of the agency's most ambitious accounts.  For the first time in its history, the U.S. Census Bureau budgeted for a paid-advertising program to reach out to the US population across the breadth of its diversity, said Saul Gitlin, Executive Vice President of Strategic Services/New Business who led the agency's strategic planning and research programs for the Census campaign.  Kang & Lee developed in-language Census campaigns that targeted thirteen ethnic groups in fourteen different languages, including 10 distinct Asian-American groups as well as Russian-Americans, Polish-Americans, and Arab-Americans. As a result, Gitlin continued, Asians had one of the lowest undercounts in 2000 and the newest Census data reconfirms the attractiveness of the Asian American population for marketers as the fastest growing racial group in the country, the population with the highest level of education and median household income, and an important target audience in key sales and marketing regions “ such as California where Asians now comprise 12% of the state population.  In recognition of the agency's Census 2000 multicultural programs, Kang & Lee won a ˜triple crown" of leading industry awards in 2001 including a Gold Effie Award from the New York American Marketing Association, the Media Plan of the Year Award from Mediaweek magazine, and the Grand Ogilvy Award from the Advertising Research Foundation, the highest honor for research within the advertising industry.

Kang & Lee Advertising, a Young & Rubicam/WPP company, is the nation's leading multicultural marketing consulting and communications agency specializing in reaching Asian Americans. Kang & Lee has annual capitalized billings of $70+ million and maintains offices in New York and Los Angeles. The agency's current roster of clients includes AT&T, 10-10-345, Martell, Chivas Regal, Crown Royal, Shiseido Cosmetics, Allstate Insurance, The New York Times, US Dept. of the Treasury, Bank of America, Sears, Sina.com, and others.


CONTACTS:

Cristina Santos or Lisa Skriloff
Multicultural Marketing Resources, Inc.
(212) 242-3351
cristina@multiculturalmarketingresources.com

Saul Gitlin, EVP Strategic Services/New Business
Kang & Lee Advertising
(212) 889-4509 x114
saul_gitlin@kanglee.com