At a Client meeting recently, the media buying agency was presenting the media plans for the next year. Given that African Americans over-index in the consumption of this particular brand, the young executive explained how we needed to keep buying space in "Black zipcodes" and "Black media" channels such as BET and blackplanet.com.
The entire room complacently nodded. After all, it makes sense and we've done the same last year and the year before.
But wait, there aren't really "Black zip codes" in London or Sao Paulo. They don't even have "Black media" or "Black brands".
And if you paid attention you might have noticed how in those places the locals' clothes and accents have nothing to do with the color of their skin either.
The US racial history alone cannot explain the gap between White and Black Cultures in this country. After all, Brazil has the world's largest Black population outside Africa, and they didn't exactly board those ships willingly either.
So while there may be other forces at play, it's important to note how lazy marketing, unconsciously or not, benefits from feeding stereotypes and perpetuating the racial divide in this country.
After all, nothing easier for an executive in charge of a "African American brand" to keep plastering "AA zipcodes" and "AA media" with "AA marketing".
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Great call. We do help recreate our world’s visions, values and believes. Marketing strategies can be wrongly based on a repeatable set of ‘governing principles’; stereotypes definitely escort to a work-shy stare, avoids coming out of the box and make real contribution. I think we talk about ‘share of future’ not ‘share of market’. Brands change. And we def deal with change. C-
ReplyDeleteVery intelligent analysis. How segregation seed is in human mind. How AA marketing sprinkle that seed.
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