Strategically Communicating

I’m looking forward to hearing Bob Witeck speak about marketing to the gay and lesbian community. I’m aware of workplace sensitivity and policies surrounding LGBT colleagues. I hadn’t thought about the spending habits of the gay consumer until the recent controversy over the Gresham bakery that refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.

The Witeck Communications website presents compelling business reasons to develop marketing plans to reach this customer.  They have more discretionary income because they have fewer children in the home.  Gay consumers form strong brand loyalty around companies that demonstrate sensitivity to the LGBT community.

On the company reputation front, a blunder with the gay and lesbian community can quickly end the relationship with the LGBT consumer. Worse, it can lead to your name appearing in case law.  In the Sunday Oregonian David Sarasohn pointed out that a Washington florist is now facing a discrimination suit filed by the ACLU for refusing to provide  flowers for a gay wedding.

An understanding of this group develops through meaningful dialogue. I once met with gay activists due to a scene in an NBC program. The scene took place in what looked like an S & M gay bar. The bartender wore leathers with suggestive paraphernalia placed behind him. The activists objected to the stereotypical portrayal. They believed those images led to misunderstandings about gay people and incited violence against them.  I came to believe they were right, and I appreciated the chance to have the conversation.

As I begin to write this post, I realize I am using my laptop for research, using my ipad to listen to music and my phone to text and check my social media. My attention is divided to say the least. This multitasking and the need to always be mentally stimulated are now the norm and it is what advertisers constantly have to battle. 30 seconds can now seem like a lifetime, and if my attention is not caught within the first 2-3 seconds of an ad, I am changing the channel or checking my phone. In Exploring the Audience’s Role: A Decoding Model for 21st Century, Kenyon et al. explains that one way advertisers are tackling this challenge is by creating ads that are so creative that they have an identity of their own, separate from the product. Immediately I thought of the most recent AT&T commercials. Whether people think the kids are cute or annoying, they are talking about these commercials. The product itself is not mentioned until the end, but with the kids help, we hear about why the qualities that make up the cell phone service are so important. These commercials are cute, they are clever, and they have the ability to make people stop what they are doing and watch, but in they end, is establishing its own identity enough to increase sales at AT&T?

I believe it was the venerable former Chancellor of Durham University that once strongly advised sensible travelers against eating in restaurants where the menus feature large, glossy photos of the food. Seems a bit unfair to Shari’s, but the point isn’t lost on the diverting but revelatory qualitative research conducted by Mohammed Baiomy et al. (2013) into the typology of restaurant menus. I’ll confess that I haven’t spent much time considering the marketing implications of menus but the researchers make a solid case for their crucial role as mediums of brand and business communications.

The research reaffirms, in my mind, that it’s all about delivering strategic, compelling content, whether you’re writing a dissertation on framing analysis, crafting a marketing campaign, or just finding a really effective way to talk about your huevos rancheros.

Analyzing typology elements like ingredient sourcing and evocative phrasing was compelling (and particularly relevant to Portland, as Ellen mentioned), but what really caught my attention was the concept of Sense of Place (SoP). Normally, I would be skeptical that a menu would impact my choice of hotels. That is, except last week I booked a hotel for an upcoming business trip and the tipping point was, in fact, the hotel restaurant’s menu. The menu itself wasn’t particularly impressive but it told me a lot, between the lines, about the hotel’s brand identity and strong SoP. Which, in my case, might as well stand for sopaipillas.

When analyzing 667 war photographs, 39 resort menus, or 93 BP press releases you need to categorize your data.  In biology this has already been done, and it can be easily replicated by using a dichotomous key.  A dichotomous key is a series of yes or no questions that are used to describe something.  If you were looking at trees, one of the first questions you would ask to narrow the tree species is “Does this tree have flowers or cones?”  This would divide all the trees in the world into two categories: conifers and angiosperms.

When analyzing media from a recent event such as the Gulf Cost oil spill, resort menus from the 2011 World Best Hotels website, or any other media that you are the first to explore you need to create a  language. This language frames the world you are studying and is used to communicate to other explorers.   By creating frames you can study how media is used and if it was successful.  If you are a good explorer, many other researchers will use your frames for their studies and follow in your footsteps.