Asians (Asian-Americans) as the “Model” Minority for Illiteracy, Poverty, Obesity (?)

I just drove 1,000 miles across the American Midwest this past weekend. En route, there were plenty of billboards to look at. Interestingly, many of them were public service announcements. Perhaps even more interesting was the fact that many of those billboards featured images of Asian people that supposedly represented a need group targeted by the public services. Being a marketer in an Asian/American (not Asian-American) household (my wife is a native and citizen of Vietnam), perhaps I (we) are especially sensitive to this phenomenon. But let me recount the billboards we saw:

• Illiteracy – a 30-something Asian man was pictured in a billboard that featured adult literacy programs
• Obesity – a 20-something, fairly round Asian woman’s face was pictured in a billboard that featured obesity awareness/prevention
• Child proverty – an Asian child (female) was pictured in a billboard that attempted to draw awareness to some statistic about American children who live in poverty
• Lupus (disease) – an 40-something Asian woman was pictured in a billboard that advised of the symptoms of Lupus erythematosus, a degenerative tissue disease

Since the billboards were stereotyping (most mass advertising does — that is its nature), I’ll go ahead and stereotype too (without doing proper research on my claims here). Namely, Asians (or Asian-Americans) do not jump out to me as a group of people who would warrant prominent placement in these ads. I do know of the stats in terms of per capita income and living standards (they rank higher than whites in these areas). To that end, I think that illiteracy and poverty would probably be relatively low among Asians. Maybe for illiteracy, they were thinking ESL (English as Second Language), but that’s not the same service as illiteracy programs. And obesity? While there is certainly an obesity problem here in the U.S., if I were putting my marketing dollars to work, I don’t think I’d put a lot of them into targeting Asians. (Ironically, soon after we saw the obesity PSA billboard, we saw one for a weight loss program that featured a stock photo of an ultra-skinny Asian girl in a bikini). Can’t speak for Lupus disease, although I believe it does affect non-Europeans more.

So what’s next, Asians in anti-meth ads?

Does anyone else think this is weird?

Business Grad Students Rank 4 Social Media “text books”

There’s no text book out there (yet), but here are the books about social media that I assign to my grad students as part of our Communication Technology class. I took a quick survey of the class opinion on the rank order of usefulness to them:

1. Groundswell by Li and Bernoff (great book; Forrester web sites includes updates to the stats)
2. Inbound Marketing by Halligan and Shah
3. Trust Agents by Brogan and Smith
4. The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition by Levine et al.

While The Cluetrain Manifesto ranked last, I think it is important nonetheless in establishing a “big picture” understanding of the changes in communication technology that have occurred during the past decade (it was published in 1999). The other books are certainly more “tactical” in nature, but I consider The Cluetrain Manifesto an important strategic grounding.

I’m thinking of replacing Trust Agents with Putting the Public Back in Public Relations by Brian Solis. Solis is a PR guy and I like his approach to new PR thinking.

I would like to hear anyone’s feedback on any of these books, or experience in general about teaching communication technology/social media.

The Problem with Twitter: Over capacity at 10pm CDT, Minneapolis

Here’s the problem with Twitter. I just tried to log in to (ironically) demonstrate the use of Twitter for my Communications Technology class:

A system that a whole lot of people rely on … gets a whole lot of press … and is a whole lot of unstable. :-\

Product Placement vs. Bureaucratic Tidal Wave

Does product placement in movies and television adversely affect the artistic value of program content? Should advertising be limited? Such questions have generated much interest during the last few years. A popular book entitled No Logo by Canadian journalist Naomi Klein confronts these issues and is described by The Economist as “eloquently setting out the suspicion and resentment that many young folk feel for large companies.”The Monthly Review stirred the pot a few years ago with an article called “The Commercial Tidal Wave” that addressed similar concerns.

Naomi Klein, the authors of The Monthly Review article, and most people I discuss this issue with all have plenty of criticisms, but are typically reluctant or unable to provide solutions to the alleged problem of increased product placement. The consensus seems to be an ambiguous call for “struggle against advertising.” I’m not sure what that means, but I’m always left asking, “So what is the solution?”

At risk of oversimplifying things, I will at least proffer two ways to handle capitalism-cum-advertising that some people, especially “young folk,” seem to be concerned with. A society could either: a) restrict freedom of businesses to advertise, and concomitantly consumers to choose, or b) rely on the age-old, yet perennially reliable barometer that drives all commercialism and trade: consumer taste.

Thinking of the last five movies I’ve watched, I do not recall any overt advertising. Is this due to the producers’ desire for artistic integrity and their ability to resist the “commercial tidal wave”? Or is it because I am not attracted to the type of entertainment that can “get away with” product placement?

The last movie I watched was Run Lola Run. There was a prominent sign for a Bolle shopping center. That might be an actual brand in Germany. I wouldn’t know. Before that I watched Hero starring Jet Li. This was a “period piece,” so nothing modern was in the film, aside from the special effects. Last month I watched Saving Private Ryan again. I guess that could be seen as “product placement” for the Army. Spirited Away was a Japanese animation that might have had something in it, but nothing obvious that I remember. Baran was an independent Iranian film so no ads there — naturally they’re down with the “revolution” I suppose.

I’m not saying that product placement doesn’t exist. It is certainly increasing in popularity. But my point is, I have great faith in people, who are ultimately all consumers (and hopefully producers), to separate the wheat from the chaff and make decisions that, in a free market anyway, will drive businesses to latch on to popular responses and divest of bad ideas. If media outlets become saturated with things people don’t want and disgusted consumers begin to take flight and seek other outlets, competition will take its natural course and provide different, more desirable outlets.

Markets are extremely diverse because they are made up of people. Not everyone likes the same things. I read magazines with no ads at all that most people consider boring. Sometimes I look at magazines just for the ads. Electronic Musician or GQ comes to mind. In some situations product placement may provide entertainment value. I expect to see James Bond driving a BMW or an Austin-Healey. What other kind of car would he be driving? An “Acme” roadster?

At least two possibilities seem to flow from what Klein and other advertising critics are presenting. On one hand you could say that people are stupid and naïve to fall for advertising and must “struggle” against it. Or you might conclude that people are freely making choices according to their individual tastes. If the critics are alluding to the former, then how can Klein or The Monthly Review have any faith in the choices of their own readership? Most social critics and intellectuals do not have enough trust in people to accept the latter.

Perhaps Klein and other critics intend to send a warning signal to indolent consumers who might otherwise be “suckered.” Something like: “Hey, watch out! There are ads out there and they can affect the human experience.” Maybe that’s what they mean by struggling against advertising. But in the end, none of the critics I’ve talked to or studied really propose a solution. The authors of The Monthly Review article actually come close. They state:

“Advertising is part of the bone marrow of corporate capitalism. Yet it does not happen on its own. It requires advertising-friendly policies and regulations to allow it to flourish.”

They never explain what they mean by “advertising-friendly policies and regulations.” But preventing advertising from flourishing (read: censorship) would ironically require policies and regulations. Addressing the perceived “tidal wave” of commercialism still leads to one of two things: Either freedom of choice (for both producers and consumers) or restriction and regulations along with the inevitable bureaucracy that follows.