A Matter of Black and White
- Image by dogsy via Flickr
Think of these names – Abraham Lincoln, Jesse Owens, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammed Ali, Arthur Ashe and Barack Obama. What do they mean to you? Great sports people, politicians and public speakers/activists? Or people who, with others, fought to offer black people better opportunities and rights and encourage integration and equality?
So why are the messages still not getting through?
According to a survey by Lattimer Communications, as many as 86% African-American women say marketers don’t understand them.
86%.
The biggest complaint is that the companies reaching out to them aren’t really communicating with them. Industry culprits include banking/financial, healthcare/pharmaceutical, fast food and the automotive industries.
Consider that the US auto industry calls Detroit “home”, a predominantly black city with almost 82% of its residents African-American. If an industry can’t even get it right with people on its own front doorstep, what’s going wrong?
Is the marketing industry (along with many others) guilty of targeting certain demographics and hoping everyone else joins in? Why does more than 3/4 of a consumer audience feel left out and disenchanted with how they’re sold to?
Sadly, I don’t have the answers. But others do. And they need to look at why they’re alienating such a large number of customers, before someone else does. Barack Obama was swept in on a promise of change – it’s time companies started living up to that premise.
What are you doing to reach out and communicate?
9 Responses to “A Matter of Black and White”
I wrote a post on my blog this Tuesday, the day after President Barack Obama's press conference on Monday evening. I was on Twitter that night, listening to the press conference and taking in all of the disparaging tweets from business people, who by day, politely ask me to view their websites, retweet their blog posts and consider joining them on their Ustream chat about their latest e-book.
By night, apparently their business persona gets hung up in the closet and they feel free to take on a more relaxed, personal alter-ego after 6:00 PM. I was saddened by some of the comments made by those who I otherwise considered very positive and valuable.
I would like to remind everyone who uses social networking to promote their business that although you are certainly entitled to your political opinions, you may want to use a personal blog to express them. Otherwise, you are potentially alienating and angering your customer base, whom you are working so hard to cultivate.
Have you ever watched the Edward Bernays series on Youtube.com? To marketers we have been seen only as a homogeneous mass of buyers, just waiting to be convinced we can attain our uncontrollable urges and deepest desires if we will buy their goods or services. The Keynesian economists still believe the problem with our economy is that we just aren't spending enough. They don't get the fact that most of us have been marketed into poverty. We can't spend what we don't have.
The vast majority of marketing has little or nothing to do with race or ethnicity. It's about finding the most effective and quickest way to separate the target consumer from their $. I really think greed is blind.
It's a valid point that more people should take on board, Snow. Yes, personal opinions are personal opinions – but they still reflect on your professional game whether you like it or not.
I haven't, Doug, although now I'm curious so will be checking shortly.
It's the age old “throw enough until it sticks” approach. Problem is, if it's the wrong audience it'll never stick. And if it negates the needs of certain communities or ethnicities, the thing that will be sticking is a sour taste in the mouth. Where's the marketing genius in that?
Have you ever watched the Edward Bernays series on Youtube.com? To marketers we have been seen only as a homogeneous mass of buyers, just waiting to be convinced we can attain our uncontrollable urges and deepest desires if we will buy their goods or services. The Keynesian economists still believe the problem with our economy is that we just aren't spending enough. They don't get the fact that most of us have been marketed into poverty. We can't spend what we don't have.
The vast majority of marketing has little or nothing to do with race or ethnicity. It's about finding the most effective and quickest way to separate the target consumer from their $. I really think greed is blind.
It's a valid point that more people should take on board, Snow. Yes, personal opinions are personal opinions – but they still reflect on your professional game whether you like it or not.
I haven't, Doug, although now I'm curious so will be checking shortly.
It's the age old “throw enough until it sticks” approach. Problem is, if it's the wrong audience it'll never stick. And if it negates the needs of certain communities or ethnicities, the thing that will be sticking is a sour taste in the mouth. Where's the marketing genius in that?
I lived in Georgia for a few years after living in California my entire life. That was the first time I realized how white most media and marketing is. I went into a store where I was the minority and finally noticed every ad on the wall had a smiling white person, every magazing cover had a white woman on it and every Barbie near the checkout was blonde and blue eyed. It was one of those aha moments for me.
Interesting read. Thanks for sharing about it on Twitter.