The Occupy movement has brought to attention this idea of “The One Percent” – the richest 1/100th of America’s population. That is, the Forbes 500, and then the next 2,999,500 guys. In context of marketing, the Occupy has made me think of what effect the social divide will have on my profession. I hope that by understanding the current events – both economical and political – I will stay ahead of the competition. Perhaps my ideas are lunacy, but I’m trying to base them on empirical research. Let’s dive right in.
The image of success in America is pretty much stereotyped. For women, it’s a skinny image of a 20-something white girl, shopping with girlfriends, smiling, maybe even flirting with guys around her. For men, it’s a fit (or muscular) image of a young Caucasian, also smiling, and (yes) flirting with girls. Sounds like just about any TV commercial, right? Well, you wouldn’t be the first to say that this is a quite skewed image of who the target audience usually is. Hey, it’s no secret, I’ll admit it – marketing glamorizes products. It’s what we do – we pitch things and services in their best light, we set the mood, and we sell hard. Even when you think you’re being informed, chances are, you’re being pitched something. So how does the 1% relate to all of this?
Think of the 1%. What do they look like? If you’re like me, then you’re probably picturing something similar to what I’ve described above. It’s an image far removed from the reality of the marketers’ clientele, who aspire to look like the people they’re seeing in the commercials.
Kinetic typography removes this roadblock, because it eliminates the need to be prejudiced towards anyone.
I think that knit-picking the voice over and the genre of the background music would be too much. However, for those who oppose the greed of the 1%, and/or those who want to remove themselves from future threats of potential prejudice, kinetic typography is a good idea. Here’s why. While you can still reap the benefits of high quality marketing, you avoid skirting the class divide. This means a wider market appeal. In Common Fire: Leading Lives of Commitment in a Complex World by Laurent A. Parks Daloz, Cheryl H. Keen, James P. Keen and Sharon Daloz Parks, “It is becoming increasingly clear even to middle- and upper-class folk – people for whom our society is presumed to work – that their well-being depends not only upon their talent, initiative and ability to work hard, but also upon the quality of our common life. We have pushed the myth of individual freedom, strength, rights, expression, competition, salvation, and specialization to an edge that cannot hold. Yet the imprint of individualism is so pervasive, familiar, and therefore powerful that we understandably still rely on that ideology as the primary motif for our economic, political, psychological, and other cultural arrangements.” So, it is true: our society has, in fact, hand-crafted that image of perfection. For both men and women, it’s stereotyped. “We do so in many forms of thought and action, each of which diminishes and hardens our sense of what it means to be human.”
I started an awesome discussion on The Warrior Forum, on the topic of racism in the Internet Marketing industry. Click here to read it.
Join the discussion. What do you think about all of this?
