So I was watching hotel television yesterday and one of the commercials that stuck out to me was one put out by an anti-smoking group. The commercials as well as additional info are in the link:
I’m always wary of any group that includes “truth” in their name, but I don’t dispute the numbers that they provide. At first glance though it seems to me like target marketing targets racial and class groups all the time, It’s pretty much in the name. And no one bats an eye. Framing this as an LGBT/race issue seems to insinuate something sinister that isn’t there.
I understand why we don’t want law enforcement to use “profiling” as a basis for hassling folks.
But it’s not clear to me that targeted marketing is in the same ball park as police using racial profiling to decide who to stop and frisk etc…
It’s definitely “profiling”, in the sense that marketers try and identify the various market segments and tailor their marketing channels, materials and what-not to each segment.
To use an extreme example, you could segment your fast food market into the “Under 10” (years old) and “Over 10” segments. Your commercials for the “Under 10” segment would concentrate on happy meals and the toys contained within, while the “Over 10” would concentrate more on the food items themselves.
LGBT segments are often heavily marketed to by certain products- they’re often dual-income, no-kids families, and have a lot of disposable cash, unlike their straight counterparts, who often have children and not as much spare cash.
I think the problem with it isn’t so much in the theory, it’s in how it’s practiced by law enforcement. It’s one thing to aim certain product lines at different ethnic/socio-economic groups, but another entirely to use similar data to justify the detainment and harassment of groups by law enforcement.
Heh. That’s an amusing interpretation. I’d say “No,” but follow with “Absolutely.”
Isn’t being hassled, being hassled? You could argue that the cops are just doing their jobs on behalf of public safety - yours and mine. But a marketer is hassling you only to sell you something you probably woudn’t want unless you were talked into it - in other words, it’s a genteel form of extortion. The only real difference between the two is that we’ve collectively decided one is okay and the other is just awful.
Imho, actions taken under the color of law with the accompanying potential for the loss of life, limb, or freedom, are immensely different than having adverts which target w/e market segment it’s determined I belong to.
Just because both can have the word hassle applied to them, doesn’t mean that they are the same.
If a billboard “hassles” me, I am free to go about my business ignoring it.
If a cop “hassles” me, I am legally/pragmatically required to stay there and deal with the situation.
There is something of a danger of market profiling reinforcing ethnic stereotypes. For example if African Americans find they get targeted ads for Malt Liquor, pay day loans and for profit tech schools, while their white friends get targeted ads for wine, brokerage firms, and law schools, they could rightly be upset.
Persuasion is not extortion without the threat of force.
If your argument is that profiling by the police and targeted marketing are the same thing…:dubious: I may enjoy/need/want to learn of what a marketer is selling. When would I ever want to be detained by the police. One makes me a captive of my own avarice while the other makes me captive of the government. One costs society a lot of money while the other brings in money in the form of profits, jobs and taxes.
Are you implying that all whites are in the same class? And that blacks form a completely different class?
But that is difficult to do. If ad agencies put the first set on BET and the second on CMT, then they are not profiling based income or socioeconomic status.
Targeted marketing is a risk. Putting phone or tablet ads on during TechTV is not going to cause any problems. But when an ad network puts ads for homeopathic medicine on a page debunking it just because it contains certain keywords is a waste of ad money and a good way to annoy the readers of that site.
Are you implying that all whites are in the same class? And that blacks form a completely different class?
If ad agencies put the first set of ads on BET and the second on CMT, then they are not profiling based income or socioeconomic status. They are pretty much profiling based on race. This may offend people but it does not call for any kind of legal action. If it gets offensive enough, public shaming and possible boycotts are sufficient.
Targeted marketing is a risk. Putting phone or tablet ads on during TechTV is not going to cause any problems. But when an ad network puts ads for homeopathic medicine on a page debunking it just because it contains certain keywords is a waste of ad money and a good way to annoy the readers of that site.
Government profiling should garner much greater scrutiny (meant in both the common and legal meaning). If schools counselors are basing their college recommendations on race or encouraging girls to take less math oriented classes that is a significant issue. And it is an issue even if they are doing unconsciously. But it is a very clear cut problem if it is a deliberate policy.
You seem to be implying that all black communities are the same. Compton will get the targeted ads that Buck Godot mentioned while Baldwin Hills wouldnt. North Hollywood will also get those ads while Beverly Hills wont. Its all about class.
The link in the OP mentioned advertising in neighborhoods.
What kind of advertising is going on in these neighborhoods?
What kind of advertising is as intrusive as being stopped by an LEO?
You replied to Buck Godot’s post about targeting blacks with malt liquor, payday loan, and tech school ads and whites with wine, brokerage firms and laws schools. His two categories were “African Americans” and “their white friends”. How could that be anything other than race? What are the two classes mentioned in that post?
And even if you try to break it down by neighborhoods, that is still problematic. Due to redlining and other systemic obstacles, even blacks with higher educations and better paying jobs are more likely to live in areas with heavy poverty.
The National Post had a terrific article yesterday about how casinos - they were looking at ones around here, but noted it’s common everywhere - are engaging in an enormous amount of target marketing at Asian customers, from mailers to entertainment choices to the way they design and decorate the casinos and amenities. (For anyone who likes casinos, like me, this is very old news; Fallsview in Niagara Falls actually has an area where all the dealers speak Mandarin and/or Cantonese.) There’s a bit of chicken-and-egg confusion in the article, as it notes that East Asian people lack the sort of Christian-guilt aversion to gambling Westerners often have, so gambling’s a more common part of their lives, but then the article notes that the rate of gambling addiction amount East Asians in Canada is rather terrifyingly high and way outstrips the population at large; so is that because of their cultural roots, because they’re being targeted by casinos, or both?
Either way, you have to admit the purveyors of an addictive thing - sometimes state-sponsored purveyors - targeting a particular ethnicity because they know they have fewer inhibitions about gambling is, at the least, skeevy. Maybe. I dunno. Maybe it’s just an awareness of who their market is.
Oh, man, do the casinos ever want to go WAY over board on targeting their marketing. I’ve even seen patent applications for systems that use facial recognition to track people as they come into the casino, identify their likely ethic and social classes, and then actively adjust the programmable slot machines nearest to them to appeal to their particular demographic slice.
I don’t know if anyone is actually doing that yet, but they are sure as hell thinking about it…
Which is which? Does “African American” mean poor/working class or upper middle class/professional/wealthy?
Are you trying to say that marketing by class is better? That is the most generous interpretation of what you are saying. Otherwise you claimed race is class and then accused me of getting them mixed up?