Wanted to briefly elaborate on the 2010 U.S. Census advertising campaign launched by Draftfcb. Advertising Age published an earlier story that garnered additional comments recognizing the lack of mass appeal. For example, Ad Age editor Ken Wheaton responded to another commenter by stating, “And, for the record, I'm as mystified as you as to who exactly they’re trying to reach with Christopher Guest spots. I like the guy, but he doesn’t exactly scream mass appeal or crossover appeal. And you can’t get any whiter than Ed Begley Jr.” Um, how about Howard Draft and his corporate cronies?
It should be interesting to see the work created by the minority agencies. The New York Times reported GlobalHue produced a print ad targeting African Americans that features Dikembe Mutombo. The former NBA player says, “Better health care, schools and roads are all within our reach. If we each just take 10 minutes to answer 10 simple questions, we can help determine how $400 billion per year in federal funds will be dispersed in our communities.” Um, Mutombo is certainly a nice guy and hardcore humanitarian, but do most folks even know him at all? Also, it probably would have been more appropriate to use “disbursed” versus “dispersed” in the copy.
Remember the census is trying to reach ALL of America. So for Blacks its African Americans, Africans and Caribbeans. I believe the Mutombo work might have been created to target Africans NOT African Americans.
ReplyDeleteThis Census 2012 campaign is gonna be a bigger fuster cluck than I thought. I can feel it.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteThat would make sense. The New York Times article only stated the Mutombo ad was targeting African Americans, and didn’t make the sub-segmented distinction. Should be interesting to see who they use for the wider Black audience.