Our Branding Prejudices: Accents & Preconceptions

This week on Studio 360 I heard the most amazing performance by Sarah Jones, an accomplished actress and writer with one-woman shows on Broadway. During this program she skillfully slipped in and out of various character roles, demonstrating the rich variety of peoples in our American tapestry. (MP3 Studio 360 playback)

What particularly amazed me was the ease with which she shifted from one to the other and captured an essence of each…  often stimulating vivid images already stored in my brain over the years.

Part of her point here was to demonstrate the impact of “Blackcent”—the various linguistic characteristics or accents of some African American speech—on people’s perceptions.

Race is a key point here, but not the only one. Yes, people do make judgments—i.e. they “brand” people— based on a person’s speech patterns, linking them to a whole host of preconceptions formed over years of observation, biased information, Hollywood stereotypes and misconceptions.  Sarah even described successfully interviewing on the phone for a job—in her crisp Midwestern voice.  And then, when she showed up for a face to face interview, being told that the job was no longer available.  Presumably because of her skin color. No surprise to most people of color.

I have suggested to an associate that this interview/performance could be a “trigger” piece for discussion in her work facilitating and educating on diversity issues with corporations and nonprofits—to stimulate personal insights and dialogue around this issue.

For me, this Studio 360 program, spotlighted several things, some related to marketing and branding of people:

• It’s astonishing how many preconceptions and prejudices we all have stored up in our brains.
• Those preconceptions and prejudices are part of the landscape for marketing efforts.
• Sometimes targeting these preconceptions and prejudices can lead to success.

• Our current Presidential race is a classic example, on many levels, of this kind of targeting and manipulation.

Lets look at a different kind of preconception here, this one Green.

Picture a Toyota Prius hybrid driver.  Got an image conjured up?  Pretty confident of who they are?  Ready to invest millions in advertising to that group in your mind?

Here are the results of a study of Prius owners by Autobytel.com:

• 40% are Republicans, 36% Democrats
• 31% are in the Northeast, only 16% on the West Coast
• 57% are over 45 years of age
• 49% don’t have a college degree
• 35% make less than $40,000 a year

How’d you do? Is this the profile you pictured?  Or was it more like liberal, vegetarian, upscale, academic tree huggers living in California?  Whoops, that was my silly preconception of the brand.