I was thinking. About how people on the coasts think. Not the coast I live on, but the other two. The ones you think of.
I’ve lived on both – first east, then west. Now, I’m content on the third one – hurricanes not withstanding.
Coastal thinking is important to think about because it affects the way we communicate. I talk about it a bit in Use A Stick – when I’m talking about targeting. But now I think it’s important to expound.
As bandwidth gets wider, the target gets narrower. Which means messages have to speak to a smaller audience. It helps if it speaks to them in a way, a style, and a voice that resonates.
Marketing and advertising are created by people on the coasts. If not literally, then figuratively. Just read Godin – when he talks about how cool some baker is because of a special baguette that’s a purple cow, or when he describes walking to a bodega that has a particularly interesting customer base, or especially when he gets going about how cars are nothing but transportation, not an emotional purchase, he’s on the coast.
Link: Seth's Blog: Seth's new car (you can help make it real).
And that’s fine, because most everyone who reads him, or who would even be interested in reading him, is on the coast, too – even if they’re in Minneapolis.
But it starts to be a problem when the coast mindset automatically translates into messages created for people in the middle. Careful, now – there’s a real easy slope to fall off here… People in the middle aren’t stupid. They’re not uncool. And they’re not less important. In fact, they represent a lot of power – in the marketplace, and elsewhere, if you happened to pay attention to the last election.
By no means am I making a political point. I’m talking about talking to people. And I think I have a good perspective, because I have, at one time or another, belonged to the middle, and to both coasts. Where I am now, I’m not sure.
The problem happens when a coast mindset assumes that a middle mindset has the same values, the same cultural references, the same sense of humor, and the same…worldview…(dang, I hate to use Seth’s third favorite word) as people on the coasts. They don’t. And they don’t really enjoy being addressed as if they do. Basically, they don’t laugh at the same jokes. At least not all the time. And it’s not because they don’t understand them – it’s just because they think other things are funny.
Now, in my experience, the initial coast mindset reaction to this is: so what? Because all those people in the middle don’t matter, anyway – right?
Lesson from politics: a candidate is simply a product.
If you want to sell your product to people who don’t think the way you do, it’s a good idea to speak to them in a way, and with a message that…speaks to them.
This, like most of the rest of my simple solutions, isn’t easy. It takes harder work than just writing what you know. It takes research, and finding the right voice for the group of people you want to talk to.
But, if it’s done properly, it works.
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