The Overlooked $170 Billion of American-Muslim Spending Power

Such inclusion has been discussed within the ad industry, but little action has been taken. Yet consumer demand is there and (full disclosure) our company is responding to it. We'd be heedless to ignore Long Island radiologist Almas Abbasi. who told the New York Times "If Ramadan starts, and you see an ad in the newspaper saying, 'Happy Ramadan, here's a special in our store,' everyone will run to that store." Now, American brands indeed do this within primarily Muslim countries - Burger King in UAE, HP in Bangladesh, Oreos in Indonesia etc. Though to date, no Muslim holidays are seized as a sales opportunity within the US. Except perhaps in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with the highest concentration of Muslims and Middle Eastern folks in America. Wal-Mart has opened a store in Dearborn designed for this demo. Newsweek reports that:

Wal-Mart offers its standard fare, plus 550 items targeted at Middle Eastern shoppers....walk through the front door of the 200,000-square-foot supercenter and instead of rows of checkout counters, you find a scene akin to a farmers market in Beirut. Twenty-two tables are stacked high with fresh produce like kusa and batenjan, squash and eggplant used in Middle Eastern dishes... a walled-off section of the butcher case is devoted to Halal meats.

Ikea has taken measures to court Dearborn shoppers and the local McDonalds and KFC serve halal meat. On the national scale, Hallmark carries Eid cards and the USPS issued an Eid stamp in 2001. But that's about it.

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