Pitching to Real Moms, the Ones Who Aren’t Perfect
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/business/media/pitching-to-real-moms-the-ones-who-arent-perfect-advertising.html?src=recgThis is the nutgraf:
The Martin Agency in Richmond, Va., which is owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies, has started a unit devoted to marketing to mothers around the world. About 10 employees are involved with the unit, named the Mom Complex, which is also making use of freelancers in other countries.
A nice quote about clichés of ads aimed at mothers at the end:
“Moms are always happy, even when cleaning. Their children are obedient angels. Moms always seem to wear sweater sets and Capri pants. And it’s common for their wardrobes to match the colors of the brands they’re promoting.”
...made me laugh! German housewives are treated the same way in the media.
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ReplyDeleteGreetings, Class! And apologies for my late appearance (this is Meghan, but unfortunately, I have not been able to shed my old blog’s name).
ReplyDeleteGerda, I appreciated reading this article as it hit on a theme that I began reflecting deeply on after watching our last class video: the potential effects of journalists' use of narrow cliches and stereotypes, in how we talk about how to do our work, and how we do the work of reporting and writing itself, on our readers and the general public.
Hopefully The Mom Complex in this article will, as aimed, provide Moms with information that represents the multiplicity of their perspectives and significantly increase the amount of useful and beneficial information that mothers view, seek and receive about their familial and societal roles.
Expanding this idea further, this article contains the ingredients of inspiration for the budding journalists of our class to constantly, personally examine the ways in which (not just advertisers, but) journalists can (or can choose not to) carry and transmit detrimental cliches, stereotypes and misrepresentative information about individuals across gender, racial, economic, ethnic, and linguistic lines.
The Mom Complex has demonstrated a way to apply the useful skill of asking before assuming or stereotyping, globally, by deploying its staff in multiple regions of the world to gather many Moms' authentic, individual opinions about their own experiences. As student journalists who will later influence hundreds and thousands, maybe millions of people, we ought to grasp the enormous significance of intentionally increasing our awareness of the personal assumptions we bring to the table (of the newsroom, academia, and in the field) and the more subtle cliches and stereotypes embedded in our experiences that can lead us to misinform, and therefore, fail our readers as trusted, fact- and perspective-seekers.
In the same way that The Mom Complex, a single company, has gone out to find out more about what an array of mothers know and believe about their experiences, we could, likewise, enrich our work in examples like the "quote altering" debate by expanding our understanding of the research of linguists and gather the opinions of the public from various regions.
Thank you, again for highlighting this article as one that appealed to you; it has also provided much food for thought on the topic of stereotyping in media endeavors.
Hello Meghan,
ReplyDeletethank you for your comment. Well, actually I do not really know where it all comes from but "the media" (which actually consists of individuals) creates images and somehow those images work, not just for moms but for everybody. Because life in general can be stressful and tyring and I am sure that it is neither easy for people with kids nor without kids to cope with everyday life. And, yes, why not, as a journalist, start and rebuild this image in a more realistic way...would be much more relaxed. On the other hand, the German labor minister von der Leyen, she has 7 kids and is very successful in politics. But one may not forget: she is very rich.What worries me is that she serves as a role model and that is not fair, in my opinion.That's not the way life works for "normal" people. I hope that I managed to make my ideas clear (I am not so sure if you can tell by my writing that I am from Germany)?
Best regards,
Gerda