Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Essay 4954


Dimetapp’s multicultural marketing tactic—shooting the same ad with different kids—is sick.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Surprised they didn’t come up with a little Dimerapp for that second one.

Anonymous said...

I don't know if I'd call it "sick". I'd say they aren't maximizing their opportunity. If you hadn't seen the general market ad and just saw the ethnic ad placed in Ebony, would you have the same reaction? I think the language isn't exactly what would resonate with the African American population, but it's not doing the brand a complete disservice. Just using the GM ad in an African American pub, now that is cause for people to get upset over the laziness of marketers.

HighJive said...

jr,

yes, it might have been odd to run the white kid in black pubs. but one question is, why not simply run the black kid in all pubs? research has shown it’s much easier for minority talent to crossover to the mass publications than white talent in minority pubs. simply shooting racial/ethnic versions of the same idea is lazy. plus, minorities do read a variety of pubs, so it’s likely that they’ll see both versions. again, it’s lazy marketing and tired thinking—which makes it sick, imho.