Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

John Whiteside’s post Advertising That Speaks To Advertisers gives a great illustration of how not to advertise to your “target” (Remember, that target is a living, breathing human being). “It’s a mistake that’s made over and over again, and an example of it turned up recently: Stonewall, a UK group that advocates for the rights of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, put 600 billboards up all across Britain for two weeks with this message:”

Smacking people with snark - particularly on such a deeply felt emotional topic - isn’t going to change their minds. In fact, it could further harden their views (and hearts.) As John notes, “…a likely response to “get over it!” is “no, I am not getting over my beliefs about what’s right, and stop badgering me about it.”

Ad agencies go for creativity and “edge.” Advertisers go with what “I like.”

In working with clients, one of my biggest challenges is reminding them that they are (usually) NOT the people we’re trying to reach. For example, I’m not a Hispanic male with limited English skills who wants to start his own trucking business and is afraid to go to a bank. I’m also not a tech super-geek who lives and dies in the bowels of his computer. And so on.

Related Posts:
Humans Are Only Human.
Stating The Obvious To The Oblivious (Over and Over Again)
Self-Love Or Effective Advertising?
The All-Knowing, All-Seeing “I”

Want to browse through all my posts? Go to The Idea Pool. Everything I’ve written since I started blogging.

Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, advertising, target marketing