Dec 20 2004
Know Your Audience… But Know Other Audiences As Well…
Currently, I am on the East Coast for holiday travel. Since I happen to own a modern marketing company, it is essentially impossible to ever turn off the section of my brain that processes promotional messages all around me. When I see a billboard, I think about the decisions made behind the scenes – why they chose the color schemes, the fonts, the imagery – the message.
Since I spend most of my time in Los Angeles, I am constantly deluged with advertising. As a matter of fact, the entire side of my office building is a ridiculously large Corvette ad. Some of the most brilliant marketing campaigns are run in Los Angeles, and I try to pay attention to each and every one. So when I find myself in a new city, I make a valiant effort to pay attention to how people are marketed to in each locale. As a marketing professional, the cardinal rule is know your audience – I find I can actually learn new things about my Los Angeles audience from analyzing how audiences are marketed to in other cities.
If you are truly interested in developing new and unique ways to connect to your audience, see how the same product is marketed to segments geographically or culturally different than your local one. Then, by analyzing the differences, you can gain a more solid understanding of the core characteristics of your target market.
