HOW TO MARKET TO BLACK FOLK. 10.20.06
Well, I've been around the blogosphere and back (can you tell I failed geometry?), and I have yet to find anyone making mention of the deplorable marketing tactics being used by the big three American car manufacturers in the past few years. That said, I suppose it's my duty to present to you, "How To Market To Black Folk", by Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors.
- Show the vehicle driving through a ghetto fantasy world, where everyone dresses like they're about to rob you, but when they see your car they all just smile and wave (or do whatever cool hand gesture that black people currently do). You want to use the "hip" element of the ghetto, but downplay other aspects like the high frequency of carjackings.
- Pump up the jam. A nice thumping beat, riddled with amatuerish record-scratching and Puff Daddy-esque verbal interjections that sound like they came from a Casio keyboard. The quality of the music doesn't really matter anyway, because black people will dance to anything. It's in their genes... which we may have put in by accident 400 years ago when we were doing genetic experiments to see if we could produce a more efficient slave.
- Show all the chrome pieces on the car, especially the rims spinning. Blacks don't care about gas mileage or crash test ratings; they just want to see shiny things.
- Get a guy who sounds like Barry White to do the voiceover, and have him say things like "aw yeah... you gon' be smooooooth comin' down the block in the new Chrysler Aspen." Make sure you say things in their langauge so you don't come across like a company full of stuffed shirts who are just trying to suck every dollar they can out of a consumer.
- Don't bother showing special lease prices on the vehicle, because no black person's credit standing is good enough to be able to lease. It really doesn't matter what kind of pricing information you show, because most blacks don't think about their investments; they just buy impulsively and assume the government will eventually help them out of their financial rut.
- Show a sexy black woman shooting aroused, envious gazes at the car; because in the end, all black men are simple-minded savages who will buy anything that gives them a chance to get some ass.