Demographics vs. Authenitic Diversity

I was conducting a focus group in Tacoma, Washington recently when a young man said, “don’t use old people in ads.” Granted he was referencing the those abysmal JG Wentworth commercials, at the same time I couldn’t believe that he spoke in such a tone. I halfway expected him to refer to “those people.”

And I thought “Is this what we have become?”

A former dean of mine who studies aging in America, Everette Dennis, once told me that the aging boomers have no one to blame for ageism than themselves; after all, it was the boomers who invented the youth culture. Since then marketers have scrambled to try to lump people into convenient demographic categories, usually with disastrous results that are insulting to the very people they are trying to reach.

This is what we believe: utilizing diverse individuals in your advertising is not only the right thing to do, it’s good for business.

In our campaigns, we aim to depict a community as it will be 20 years in the future. When we visit public schools in Spokane, the faces we see are dramatically different than those of the business leaders in our community. We also like to embrace what we call non-specific diversity. People have more touch points than their chronological age or the color of their skin.

When I am interviewed about how we reach diverse age and ethnic audiences, I tell reporters, “we don’t try.” What I mean by that is that we don’t try to presume the hopes, dreams and aspirations of individuals. Instead we let them speak for themselves. We have worked with 20 year olds who don’t own a cell phone, 59 year old bloggers who live in a virtual world, and inner city youth who aspire to be farmers. We’re all individuals, and the moment we rely solely on demographics to reach people we lose the heart and soul of our message.

We have always maintained that you can be different and still reach common ground. It is our firm belief that you can reach an 83 year old grandmother by using a 19 year old in a commercial, and vice-versa. We all have grandparents and parents and brothers and sisters and children and grandchildren.

An example of this is a spot we created for Kitsap Credit Union. It features a 74 year-old African-American man who grew up on the South Side of Chicago and is known as “the walker” around the streets of Bremerton, Washington (his adopted home since 1960). It is the favorite spot of my wife, a 46 year old Iranian-American woman. Why? Her father is a 74 year old Iranian immigrant who is known as “the walker” in Eugene, Oregon (his adopted home since 1960).

We will always feature diverse groups of subjects to reach diverse audiences. More importantly, we will do it in an individualistic manner that steers clear of cliches and stereotypes.

What if the world was like a credit union?

We were working on a credit union campaign a couple months ago when the thought occurred to us, “What if the world was like a credit union?” In this day and age of bank meltdowns, super-sizing and people trying to sell you stuff you don’t really need, most credit unions stand out as that unique breed that actually does what is in the best interest of its members.

And that’s when it struck us. So often, credit unions have tried to pit themselves against banks or talked about “how we know you by name” when the real value proposition of a credit union was an intangible, something that was best communicated by analogy.

The mindset of a credit union is difficult to verbalize, but it’s easy to demonstrate. Not only are there remarkably few businesses that operate like a credit union, but having them act as if they thought in your self interest is ridiculous at best.

And that is the gist of these spots. We set them in traditional retail situations - a restaurant, a trendy clothing store and a gym. We’re also planning to set them in a fast food outlet, in an airliner (pitching frequent flier credit cards) and at a chess match in the future.

These spots have a bit of an edge because they tell the truth. We think the time is right for it.

For more information on the spots, contact amanda@boomcreative.biz.