A kid walks into a Verizon phone store wearing a belt bristling with the latest tech gadgets.

“Sweet belt,” says a salesman.

The kid shows off his back-to-school hardware: “E-reader for textbooks .?.?. GPS .?.?. video camera for lectures .?.?. game pad.”

“Have you considered this?” responds the salesman, pulling out a smartphone. “It’s got all that and more than 200,000 apps.”

The kid’s smirk vanishes. He’s stunned into silence by the all-in-one convenience.

The most striking aspect of this new TV commercial may not be the product or the semi-humorous portrayal of gizmo love. It’s the casting. The kid is played by a young Caucasian actor; the salesman is Asian American.

The two roles fit a well-worn pattern, one noted by academic researchers for almost two dec­ades. When Asian Americans appear in advertising, they typically are presented as the technological experts — knowledgeable, savvy, perhaps mathematically adept or intellectually gifted. They’re most often shown in ads for business-oriented or technical products — smartphones, computers, pharmaceuticals, electronic gear of all kinds.

The stereotypical portrayal reinforces a marketing concept known as the “match up” theory, which states that consumers respond more favorably to products advertised by an actor or spokesperson who “fits” the product. Just as consumers expect cosmetics to be sold by a supermodel or athletic equipment by a professional athlete, in the minds of the U.S. public, Asian Americans are strongly associated with technical know-how, says researcher Jinnie Jinyoung Yoo of the University of Texas.

Variations on the theme have appeared in numerous TV commercials in recent months:

-Staples advertises its computer-repair service with images of laptops flying like gulls into one of its stores. When one of the laptops crash-lands, the fix-it technician who comes to its “rescue” is an Asian American.

-CVS’s TV ads feature a lab-coated pharmacist of Asian descent dispensing advice about medication to a baffled Caucasian lady.

-A mother and her teenage son shopping at Best Buy learn that the store offers “Geek Squad” techies, who are packaged and displayed like life-size action figures on the store’s shelves. One of the tech guys is an Asian American.

-IBM’s commercials feature brainy IT consultants, including a young Asian American woman who talks up the company’s efforts to create “a smarter planet.”

These sorts of roles haven’t escaped the notice of some Asian Americans, who are of mixed minds about it. On the one hand, it’s hard to object to being associated with positive traits — intellectual, well-educated, knowledgeable, etc. On the other, they say, it’s a limited and singular cliche for a highly diverse group that comprises nearly 6 percent of the U.S. population and is made up of people of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, Indian and South Asian descent as well as other backgrounds.

“I’m just happy to see [Asian Americans] at all,” says Bill Imada, the chief executive of IW Group, a Los Angeles-based ad agency that specializes in marketing to Asian American consumers. “Does [the tech role] perpetuate a stereotype? Yes. But at least it doesn’t perpetuate the stereotypes we once saw.”