Multiple Audience Segmentations

I really liked the idea of segmenting your audience on more than just demographics. Rather than solely looking at age, culture and SES, this week's course showed us that your message can be more efficient in reaching people in terms of psychographics, levels of readiness and places along the stages of change model. This is an idea that we've been implicitly weaving into some of discussions regarding ED consumption but it was a great reinforcement to have those ideas mirrored in the classroom. And, it's a perfectly clear example of how theory is integrated into health communication. I do think, though, that one crucial demographic that should still be integrated into health communications is the population's SES. In one of the student presentations, the authors argued that creating messages for audiences segmented along lines of readiness or lifestyle habit proved more effective than those cut across the traditional demographic segmentation lines. While this may work for certain health messages, there are other wherein SES, income and location directly tie into access in order to change health behaviors. As such, even if woman A (who is in a high SES) and woman B (who is in a low SES) are both at the same level for change, or have similar psychographics in terms of healthy eating, messages to woman A can be relatively straight forward, whereas messages for woman B, who has a small income and lives in an area that has little if any access to healthy fruits and vegetables, will need to be strategically different to try and address or mediate her particular barriers.

I liked the TAAG example that Sheila presented in class but I am somewhat uncomfortable with labels. As she discussed, labeling is mostly used in-house for easier referencing and, because some of them are offensive, they aren't used to address the general population. And of course segmenting is a necessity so messages can be tailored to a certain audience to try and get as much of that audience to listen. I definitely see the appeal of this in choosing appropriate cultural symbols, language, and situations. But, at the same time, I feel like I'm stereotyping and the liberal arts education inside of me fights it. Even when we discuss who drinks ED there are some large assumptions we have to make in the beginning. In class it was pointed out that the labels for TAAG were chosen by the participants, not the researchers, but I still don't think that makes it okay, or right, or absolves the researchers of any part in continuing the perpetuation of stereotypes in any setting. While constructing an ad for a Latino population, I don't think there would be too much of a problem to write it in Spanish and English. But, if I always use the example of eating rice and beans and tacos in my ads, then that can be offensive because I'm continuing a stereotype. I guess there is a fine line between the two that is hard to navigate and find an ethical middle ground that segments a group enough to reach them, but doesn't continue stereotyping or assumptions. This, of course, is why we do pilot-testing and focus groups but I still contend that even if a majority thinks it's okay and appropriate, it isn't necessarily always is. What do you ladies think?

The time during class to work in groups was much appreciated though, apparently, we're pretty ahead of the game. Go us! I'll be MIA until Sunday night, so have a great weekend, everyone!!!