I've seen this flying around the media for a while now, first in a Radio Advertising based forum and now on the site Black Voices. The encompasses most of the story... OK, first I admit, I am a white male so my perspective may be a bit skewed. However, BMW / MINI or any other advertiser are not forced to market their products in every demographic. If they feel that the product will not be well received by the demographic served but the radio station why must they advertise there? Does this mean that those that serve the Urban Market must also now advertise on radio stations out of their demographics? To be a bit gross and stereotypical here...am I going to start hearing that Colt 45 40's is now an NPR sponsor. What I think we are seeing here is a way for Jessie Jackson to bribe companies that market to a different demographic to pony and pay Jessie. Your thoughts?
Totally Agree. Most of these companies spend millions of dollars every year to find out who's buying their cars. So naturally, they are going to market themselves where they get the best bang for the dollar. this isn't about race, it's about money....that's it... period. Most of my friends that are black and drive cars in that class prefer Mercedes and Lexus to BMW...why? I don't know.. I'll ask. It's just a shame that racial tensions are still so bad that we have to see stuff like this in the news.
Nate. You are white make? A bit of a racist comment. And galoki has it covered. I doubt we will soon see Roll Royce adds in Jet, or Jerri Curl in Wall street journal.
Galoki - you hit the head right on! If the shoe was on the other foot it would be a totally different story. The fact is, regardless of the company, Demographics play a HUGE roll in marketing...its not Racist...its cold hard fact!!! I can respect what Jesse Jackson has done and what he stands for, but at the same time it seems that he is stuck in the 1970's...He almost comes across as a Heritic sometimes. I asked some of my coloured friends (who drive MINI's) what they thought, and they laughed at Jesse... He is always preaching about inclusion, yet he always refers to "The BLACK Community" WTF?
Just a thought. Could there be a chance that Jesse is pulling this stuff out of his rectum just to try to stay relevant? Not to diminish his past accomplishments.
I see this as Extortionary Racism. In very simple terms.... Pay me, in this case my coalition, or I'm going to speak from my pulpit that your company is racist.
Nate...I think you just Coined a new Term... I'm Surprised he hasn't had something to say about the term "Blackmail" Then again...maybe he has, I don't really follow his preachings...
One things for certain BMW/MINI marketing to predominantly white audiences works. In our local club there are two black couples, period. At MITM in August I can't recall a single black person in attendance. On the other hand I checked out a MINI club in South Africa on FaceBook with 900+ Miini/MINI crazy members. Guess Mini/MINI marketed a little to these fine folks huh? Go figure
Yep.. Nate you are totally correct. This is just another case of the stuff I am tired of. It's basically reverse racism. I have a friend who is AFRICAN american. By african american I mean he is actually an immigrant from africa. He cannot get any student loans, grants or assistance because of one thing. His skin is "white". Yet if it wasnt he could get all or close to all of his schooling paid for. Really? Just becuase of skin color? Gimme a break! Same with me. I get no assistance. It's BS.
There's a very simple explanation for all this. Of all Genre's of music there's only one that has any song that specifically mentions a MINI Cooper. If their getting free publicity in that sense why bother buying that ad time? I know the real reason is that MINIs target demographic is not the same as a typical hip-hop stations listening audience. This doesn't mean that they don't want any certain person buying the car, it's just a waste of money to advertise there when so few of the listeners will become owners. I don't see JJ complaining about it going the other way, just last year the marketing department at the university came up with a rap song to go along with a radio ad that was specifically targeted at urban teenagers in the Chicago area. We never went so far as to say we were courting a certain race (15% of the enrollments are black compared to a 7% Latino population) but we sure were targeting a growing demographic. I guess selling education to a specific group is OK but selling somewhat costly cars to a group other than them isn't.
You got one of them too? My roommate in the Army was an African American with pink skin (American missionary mom and British naval officer dad with the kid born in Zimbabwe). Second roommate was a former child soldier from Liberia. Together our room in the barracks was known as the green card room. As we were the only three immigrants in the entire company of 90+ people I had fun claiming discrimination based on the fact that the three of us were "segregated". Nearly gave my CO a heart attack with that one. Of course all that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.