I’ve been holding onto this one since last month.  I came across an article on Bnet.com, titled “Should we advertise on Glenn Beck?” by the CEO of Blinds.com an online store that sells all types of window blinds.  You can read the story for yourself but in short, he thought a good place to find a demographic for his company’s products would be consumers who listen to Glenn Beck’s radio show.

Within a week, he received a boatload of hate mail.  In his words, “It took all of about 6 days before the vitriolic verbal attacks against me and my company rolled in via Twitter. And they’ve been nasty — I’ve been called everything from a Nazi and a homophobe to a slew of other names that if published here my editor would surely censor….One day last week, within 24 hours alone, I received hundreds, if not thousands, of tweets along these lines.”  He went on to say that he never had any intention of endorsing Gleen Beck’s views.  In fact, he said he never listened to the guy.  All he was doing was looking for a demographic.

His article piqued my interest because we do so much consulting to clients about aligning corporate values with those of customers.  We know value is important but today’s consumer still wants more.  So I looked him up and sent him this email:

Dear Jay,

I consult on these types of issues with a lot of clients that are foreign countries and their industries.  As a large part of our business is foreign, I think it gives us some 30,000 foot level perspective on the U.S..

One thing I tell them, that you’ve discovered, is that Americans don’t just want value, they want values.  It’s both a negative symptom of our political and media polarization and a positive manifestation of our increasing awareness of globalism and multi-culturalism.

It’s not enough to buy an audience or demographic any more.  You have to consider how your values and those you espouse through your company relate to or resonate with a marketing vehicle’s audience.  Due to our extreme polarization, we have as many rabid against-anythings as we do pro-anythings and they will readily take action in opposition to the other.  This is a tough needle to thread for any marketer.

Personally, I probably wouldn’t buy from a company that advertised on Glenn Beck, although the only way I’d find out is from someone writing about it and the fact that they would and do tells you something about the environment we’re in right there.  Professionally, I’d be unlikely to recommend it because I know and you now know what would ensue.

There are so many ways to reach your target customers that are likely to be more effective, non-controversial and much more economical.  While I want to impart some good advice to you, I’d also like to sell some of those ways too.  You may get a hint of that from our website, but I can be more specific if you contact me through our website.

Good luck and best regards,

Well, I got a form email response back.  It was polite enough but no further dialogue ensued.  That’s okay though because I thought it was the perfect example of what a treacherous marketing world we’re all in.  It also tells us who’s really in control.  We have to decide where we stand, not just in business but personally, define our values and then adhere to them in the way we conduct ourselves personally and through work.  Otherwise, many of the people we’d like as customers, friends or associates will drop us like…well, as quickly as they can drop the blinds on their windows.

Tags: Americans, Assumptions, Blinds.com, Customers, Demographics, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Individualists, Marketing, Media Buying, Mistakes, Outcomes, Polarization, Situation Analysis, Social Media, Strategy, Tweets, Twitter, U.S. Marketplace, Value, Values