Is marketing all-inclusive?

Is being plus size not worth creating an advertisements for? Calvin Klein and Michael Kors do both design houses have fabulous plus size lines but there are no campaigns out there for them. The Webster dictionary definition of marketing is: “the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service.” There are many things that can make a business a success but marketing is at the heart of it all. Is it common knowledge that without a strong marketing plan businesses could possibly be taking a huge hits. Often we are taught the value of doing a marketing plan but rarely do we see a plan that will include unique perspective such as how to approach the hearing impaired or the blind, or how companies are going to sell their products to these populations.

Not long ago, Samsung took the Internet by storm with its campaign to promote a new service in Turkey for the hearing impaired, which touched the hearts of millions of Internet users. I often question if companies even consider these populations as a demographic when doing their market research or they only do it when they have a specific product to market to them such as Samsung did.

ESPN Deportes Logo

The same way with the multilingual community, in a recent meeting I had with the social media team for the Philadelphia Eagles, I was shocked to learn they are also struggling with reaching out to the huge Spanish-speaking fan base, which they didn’t know they had until recently. My question to them was what are you going to do: translate your message or create an original message? The answer was: “we don’t know yet.” ESPN and NBA as two examples of sports outlets that have done  a decent transition to Spanish–doing bilingual broadcasting in ESPN Deportes, and Noche Latina for the NBA where the objective is to create original content for the Spanish speaking populations.

There are few products that have gone the extra mile and create a campaign geared to the populations they are speaking too. Apple was one of them with the campaign “I am Mac,” where they recreated the same ad in Chinese as well as a British version. Or cosmetic companies like Cover Girl that feature

Sofia is a great choice for marketing because she can speak to both the Hispanic market and the English speaking market too.

Sofia Vergara and Dana Garcia as Cover Girls on their ads in Spanish and English.

Don’t you think woman that are hearing impaired will love to learn about Dove’s product? Woman with a physical disability are “real woman,” too. Are they featured in their ads?… I certainly haven’t seen any on their ads. An alcohol brand like Bacardi, whose original ads where in Spanish, is another product that has done a phenomenal job with a multilingual transition–in this case from Spanish to English.

More recently, it is possible to see more diversity in marketing campaigns, at least more than 10 years ago. But marketing has been far from all-inclusive. There are so many sensibilities’ to be aware of: The fact that a group of people speak Spanish doesn’t mean they are Mexican and will identify with a sombrero and mariachi music. Stereotypes can definitely hurt your brand when trying to diversify and be all-inclusive. But is something is worth to try.