Wow America. We did it! We're colorblind! There are no longer any distinctions between black, white, Asian and Hispanic!
Nothing against cpb or BK. I hope their work works gangbusters...but this notion of "Melting Pot" strikes me as....misguided.
To believe it, you'd have to ignore the fact that according to the Civil Rights Project at the University of California "Blacks and Hispanics are more separate from white students than at any time since the civil rights movement"
You'd have to essentially believe there are no more distinctions between ethnicities. (Wow...won't cultural anthropologist be shocked? I can already see them lining up at breadlines on Monday, poor souls)
And if you truly believed it, you'd have to alert Millenials that this is the case. Because they seem not to have gotten the memo.
They've actually done the opposite of the millenial-melting-pot marketers have lately "discovered." They erroneously have been fascinated and inspired by the different ethnicities. They foolishly have been celebrating their differences and uniqueness...not "melting" everything down to a bland tan.
Or...maybe it's just a coincidence that in 2007 90% of all billboard chart toppers were by African Americans. Maybe it's just a minor data blip (that's keeps on repeating itself year after year...blasted blips!)
If Millenials were truly colorblind and all ethnicity lines had melted away, as some folks claim, you'd see billboard artists be representative of the total market. Instead, the reality is that there is something that comes from African American artists that is incredibly powerful and unique...to Millenials. The same guys who are supposed to be colorblind.
And if you believed in the medium tan melting pot, you'd probably want to tell Dora The Explorer to stop speaking Spanish and connecting us with Latino Culture. Nobody cares about those foolish distinctions anymore (just ignore her astronomical ratings and endless spinoffs "Diego," "Maya and Miguel," etc).
And someone would have to please alert Michael Cera that his latest movie "Scott Pilgrem vs The World" shouldn't contain so many ethnic references and Asian influence! Millenials don't care about that, you see. They're not fascinated by Anime and Rap. It's all a mistake!
What's really happened, in my humble opinion is rather quite interesting and life-changing:
The G.I/Silent Generations: did not tolerate ethnicities
Generation X: learns to live with and tolerate them
Millenials: find them irresistibly interesting and unique.
Very different than a melting pot (nearly opposite, really).
And that leads to an extraordinarily different marketing approach too.
1 comments:
Very well stated, there is a mutual appreciation society happening amongst the youth. It's just a perfect storm of cultural collage in the works presently. For all the good, great and insightful work CPB has done, I don't think they've come anywhere near proving they can advertise relevantly to these segments (but who needs proof).
Perhaps we underestimate the relevancy of Sir MIx-a-lot bumping butts' buns & burgers.
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