Disclosure: I’m a somewhat lapsed cafeteria style Catholic who forgot that yesterday was Ash Wednesday. I’m writing this post based on cultural trends I see in our society, the often monolithic viewpoint of marketers and the media, and the results of good ol’ fashioned grassroots appeal. My own religious views have nothing to do with this since I generally disagree with the religious views of a couple of groups I’m writing about.
When I kept on hearing from professional political pundits that the GOP race for president was now down to two people, John McCain and Mitt Romney, I knew that it was happening again. They were conveniently overlooking the strengths of a third candidate that they ignorantly thought was washed up. Mike Huckabee. Mike Huckabee went on to win five states on Tuesday. Most pundits were predicting that he’d capture just one: his home state of Arkansas. Some of these same pundits were saying that Huckabee winning these states was on the Super Tuesday’s major stories.
The actual story was that these same pundits didn’t see it coming.
In AdAge today, Ken Wheaton points out how the supposed experts misjudged this, just as they had misjudged the appeal of The Passion of the Christ a few years ago. So yes, once again we had a yet another example this past Tuesday night of how supposed pundits and experts both misunderstood and underestimated the power and influence of evangelical Christians and, to a lesser extent, conservative Catholics. In other words, deeply conservative people of some sort of Christian faith.
Why is this important? Because I largely see many in the advertising, media, and entertainment industries as having the same socio-cultural mindset. And when it comes to marketing, it’s a major problem. Too many seem to feel that everyone else (at least those that are intelligent and/or hip) think just like them.
By the way, I’ve written about this before here and here.
It concerns me when I hear those in social media marketing say “you need to engage the community” when I fear that they come to the table with the same assumptions and biases. That’s because social media is that more personal. It’s that more tangible.
I see the social media space as being populated by mostly twenty and thirty somethings. At times, I’ve seen the same stereotyping of certain demographic groups as I have seen from those that are older or are of the same age but are in traditional advertising. It’s my hope that all of us seek to understand not just the bare bones individual that we look to influence, but the cultural factors that make them tick.
Even if we can’t relate to it.
