The Big Whitewash

After 13 years as a copywriter, I’ve noticed three perennial constants: 1) an increasing number of failing ad campaigns and marketing strategies, and a growing number of confused and frustrated clients, colleagues and ad critics; 2) the increasing cultural and ethnic diversity in America; and 3) the mind-numbing lack of ethnic and cultural diversity within the ad industry.

Here’s a shot in the dark: Has it crossed anyone’s mind that a big reason so many marketers still struggle to reach our diversifying consumer base is because we’re less and less like them than ever before?

We talk a lot about how media-savvy consumers have become, but we sidestep the obvious fact that they’ve also gotten blacker, more Mexican, more Puerto Rican, more Chinese, more Korean, more Ethiopian, more Colombian, more Jamaican, etc.