The other day I’m going through my mail. It’s the standard:
bills, ASU Alumni magazine, coupons for the store…
…and a special mailing from Bath & Body Works talking about their new DARK KISS line to help me seduce “him?”
It’s addressed to me, Patrick Maurer.
First, I’m not a gay man. Still, I’m basically 100% positive that even my gay friends would never wear this line. It’s a line obviously designed for females and they are sending it to me, a male.
Bath & Body Works isn’t the first to do this. On a recent trip to Ulta to buy some hair product, face soap, and a men’s grooming kit, I was asked to provide my email address. I did, but now I’m bombarded with messages for makeup, lip gloss, and fragrances. I’ve tried to customize the email messages, so I only get emails about “men’s products,” but the computer doesn’t seem to recognize it, so I’ve removed myself from the mailing list.
Of course none of these are as fun as what my dad received last year. Luckily my sisters also happened to be in town so we could watch our dad open up his special package from Kotex especially for him (apparently they thought my dad, proud father of four adult children, would be the perfect person to market their U by Kotex product to). We all had a good laugh at this one.
The problem? It’s a generic message sent to the masses.
Bath & Body Works and Ulta DO have products for males–it’s why I’ve shopped at those places in the first place, but it seems to be too difficult to try to develop communication for their male audiences. I even went to Hallmark last week, but had difficulty finding Thank You cards that didn’t look like they came from the nursery of a 3 year old girl–and people wonder why men don’t send many handwritten notes.
I’m not attempting a rant companies treatment of male. Not at all. I get the idea of product demand. Still, I wonder if some of these companies could make some simply modifications that would encourage a more diverse customer base–especially since they already have products for those customers.
And it also got me thinking about our schools and our organizations.
How often are we sending out one generic message to the masses and failing to truly communicate with out own diverse customer bases? Are we regularly neglecting people simply by trying a one size fits all?
I’m very well aware that this blog does that almost every time I type since the audience is students and teachers, students from diverse organizations, students from different countries, different states, different ages, etc. But I do try to make that conscious effort to reach my diverse audience by addressing different ideas.
Are you?
Go beyond a mail merge and learn about your real audience.
I’m trying.
(but please let me know how I can do better)