Let's get Real

At the last Ad Fed meeting, our guest speaker, Dr. Susan Mboya, Global Director for New Business Development with Procter & Gamble, presented "Winning With Minorities: An Equal Opportunity Industry."

After her presentation, she and I reviewed some of her points and my notes and these are so important, that I'm sharing them with you.

First, Dr. Myboya did a comparison of advertising targeted to African-American Women in the General Media vs. advertising that was targeted to women in general in the General Media.
(General Media refers to networks such as ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. vs. networks such as BET)

By keeping it "real" with less hype, the African American Women in the Proctor and Gamble focus groups, responded more favorably than they did to general advertising, because they felt like the company connected with them and their reality.

What I also found fascinating, but not surprising, the non African American Women also responded more favorably to the ads that were targeted to African American Women and aired in the General Media. As I saw the women in our luncheon audience react and comment during the presentation, they were echoing the results of the research that P & G did.

Why did non African American Women respond more favorably to advertising that was not targeted to them?

The answer is simple.

It is because the ads dealt with reality, not Hollywood or Madison Avenue Hype. And our brains and emotions are wired to look for what is real and screen out the b-s.

Let this be a lesson to all of us involved in advertising and marketing, Keep it Real.