Is it simply changing a laundry or cleaning commercial (or whatever product) to a woman living in a nice condo, sans husband, sans kiddies or do you want more than that? Like stuff single gals with disposible income are SUPPOSED to do?

As for ethnicity, I *STILL* don't understand what you mean. Again, is it simply replacing the blonde white girl with someone who is ethnic? Because I've seen Wal-Mart commercials on ethnic TV, and they pretty much are the same. The only thing different is language. People who shop at Wal-Mart are looking for the same sort of things. Ditto w/ baby stuff and fast food. As for more luxurious products. Asian women who love Prada will buy Prada regardless of whether the spokesmodel is white or Asian. Asians tend to be less picky about ethnicity than many other cultures.

my blogs:

Writing Blog (for updates on my writing and media plugs about my book)

Shorty Stories (a blog for petite activism)

I talked with Kelly about that session a few times, and I think part of the problem that day is that we didn't insist on keeping the subject on race longer. The discussion quickly switched gears, whether because it was uncomfortable or because we were almost out of time, I don't know. I do know it felt uncomfortable, as discussion of race often do, but I personally believe women should be able to sweat out a little awkwardness in the name of forward movement.

Surrender, Dorothy - When I was your age, we just let them ride in the back window.

Thanks for bringing this up, Laina. Yes, writergal, for some products, it's just a matter of recognizing that all kinds of people use soap, toothpaste, food, etc, so it makes sense to make your advertising images and your ad buys diverse. Some products are specific to some demographics -- hair and skin care, for example. When it comes to parenting, there are multicultural toys, books and music. There are ethnic foods, housewares, fashions etc.

FYI, you might find this online exhibit about Moss Kendrix, an African American pioneer in public relations, of interest: http://www.prmuseum.com/kendrix/moss1.html .

Kim Pearson

BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

It was brought up in State of the Momosphere because we were talking about getting paid to write and running ads on blogs, etc., and then "free stuff" came up. The discussion turned to how to get visibility for doing reviews, etc., since moms in general seem to make marketers salivate - something about buying decisions for the family, blah, blah.

At that point, Kelly and Stefania said their bit about NOT being approached. I think their points were relevant because a) they both have a huge following, certainly more than mine, and I get approached pretty regularly and b) Stefania is Asian and Kelly is black. As you can see from my photo, I'm white, so I thought it was relevant. It might not be the only reason they weren't approached in that forum, but race must be some sort of factor if a) the PR people in the room admitted it was and b) those of us with smaller audiences and white pictures are getting approached more frequently than superstars with skin of another color.

I hope that helps explain the issue - I don't think anyone is playing an unnecessary race card here. I really don't. Something's going on, and it's pretty fishy for Stefania to get approached by the PR world on CityMama and not on KimchiMamas (the Korean-American blog of which she is a founding member). That's just odd, and telling.

The subject switched, I truly believe, because the session was about to close. Jory was moderating and nothing in her delivery insinuated she was running away from the race issue. I think if someone had pushed it farther, we would've kept talking about it. That's why I apologized to Kelly. I'm loud, and I feel like I should've pushed for us to stay on it longer. The thing is that we have to pull together. If someone who's earned the traffic and the popularity is being ignored, we should say something. The rules for success shouldn't be different for blacks and Asians, or anyone.

Surrender, Dorothy - When I was your age, we just let them ride in the back window.

I'm so grateful that you cleared it up, Rita, and also thanks to Heather for giving this whole discussion some context. I think, in fact, that what WriterGirl doesn't understand is what we were asking for. I don't need to see commercials or ads with women of my skin tone in order to buy products. However, it is sometimes helpful when someone tells me that a product works for women of color because our skin IS different. Our hair IS different. I don't need a shampoo with body (which I recently mentioned in a post) because I have that. So the lesson is, therefore, for companies who make products to pay attention to the differences so WE have options.

I shall illustrate with a little story: when I was about 11 years old hair mouse was invented. My short curly hair worked ok with it until the buildup happened. (It could have been, too, that there was a change in my hair as we all know that skin, nails, and hair changes texture, etc...periodically). Then, it dried out my hair. I didn't know what to do next because some black hair care products are too strong for my hair. Indeed, mouse was an interesting invention, but it was all the rage and women loved it. White women with completely different hair than me, that is.

My point is this: products need to fit ALL of us.

When products are appropriate, then marketers will know who to target. It's a cyclical discussion so I hope all the necessary people/companies/marketers are listening.

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HeatherB, Kim, Rita you are a doing a great job holding down this discussion. I do think this warrants further discussions even if people are uncomfortable. Racism or any ism is difficult for people because unless you see it in your conscious life it is difficult to explain to others who may not look, live, talk like you do. It's simply NOT about putting a black/asian/latino face on a product. Is Barbie any less Barbie if she is Black/Asian/Latino..YES to anyone who isn't Black/Asian/Latino. There is money to be made with mommybloggers of color and advertisers need to recognize and respect that and go after those dollars. See US and recognize that we come with communities in tow.

Love,
Babz
www.lovebabz.blogspot.com
my journey. my life.

Hello, all. I followed Rita to the session even though I'm not a mommy because she is my sister, and I remember this moment in the conversation.

Writergal8, as Rita explained, the conversation was revolving around bloggers getting free products in the mail to write about on their blogs. Mommies are often sent free gadgets, diapers, swiffers, etc. by marketing companies. But the trend seems to be that they send them to white mommies.

I found this interesting for 2 reasons: 1.) I'm not a mommy, so I was unaware that there was a race issue in the marketing blogger mommy world. I found this fascinating--because, yes, it's 2007, so that seems INSANE. 2.) I'm single. No one sends me ANYTHING. And no, I don't have a giant condo OR a disposable income. I could totally use some free sh*t. Bring it on! But alas, I'm not a mommy.

Heather, you not only speak to race issues, but also to the singles issues, and I commend you for that. Very interesting food for thought!

As a single woman, I feel like I have LESS disposable income because I don't have anyone to split rent or mortgage with, I don't get many tax deductions, etc. So it is a bit galling to hear mom/family bloggers complain about the lack of attention they get...I always say "Try being a single, childless 40-something and see if anyone pays attention to you" (they don't).

As far as race goes, I think that white people are in the same position vis a vis race as men are to woman. White is considered the norm, and we don't even bother to consider what that means. There is white and there are "other" races. White is not other. Male is still considered the norm in many places. Whenever I mention my doctor or my boss, most people STILL assume that person is male, and it is not.

If racism and sexism are over, answer me this: why do men overwhelmingly choose books written by other men and why do white people tend to avoid movies with all-black casts? Because books written by women are "women's books" and movies about black people are obviously only interesting to blacks?? This subject is so fascinating to me.

It's possible the PR people love mommies (and apparently, white mommies) because of the notion that we are buying for more people because more people are inherent in the fact we had sex and procreated. That said, (PR people, are you listening? I used to do PR! This is free focus-group sh*t, here!) middle America reads blogs and follows bloggers. If you're popular and have a big audience and happen to do reviews, you should get free sh*t to review because you will reach a greater audience, thus offering higher ROI for the PR people and their clients.

I think the point here is that big audiences and substantial reach are not limited to white mommies at all. There are (gasp) single people and (double gasp) ASIANS AND BLACKS AND LATINAS who have success and reach. And they would like their f*cking laundry detergeant, stat.

Surrender, Dorothy - When I was your age, we just let them ride in the back window.

I know of a clothing store specializing in petite sizes that tried to reach out to the big Asian communities in Toronto. After all, Asian women are more likely to be 5'4" or shorter, right? Well, ads apparently went into the three major Chinese language newspapers (and I assume other Asian languages too), but no. It didn't work. Reason? Asians, or, at least the Chinese community, generally fall into two categories when it comes to shopping:

1. Very affordable/budget (i.e. they won't be able to afford the $500 suits sold at this particular store)..does a lot of her shopping at places like Wal-Mart and at ethnic malls.

2. Brand name conscious: These tai-tais (ladies who lunch) have a strong preference to big name, mostly European brands. These European brands can cost even more than the clothes at this particular store.

Of course, there are other issues, such as lack of parking, bad selection (except for one or two brands, most are your typical granny-style petite clothes.) and the lack of knowledge about petite sizes (many don't know petite sizes exist or aren't sure what "petite" means).

No matter how you try to spin things, it's probably going to be difficult to attract this group (I should add that this group consists mostly of immigrant Asians/Asians who came to Canada as adults over 18. Those who came as kids or teens, or were born here are just as likely to be brand conscious, but are more likely to experiment with different designers or brands/buy unknown designers/brands.)

my blogs:

Writing Blog (for updates on my writing and media plugs about my book)

Shorty Stories (a blog for petite activism)

I don't want to detract from 'today' but you might find my recent post on minority marketing and media interesting ~ it has a 1963 interview with Leonard Evans, a legend in marketing (and the founder of the Negro National Network and the 'Tuesday' supplement). It proves quite relevant to 2007 and this conversation...

Founder, Editor, of Sex-Kitten.Net

I have had contact with several PR people who disagree with some of the statements made here. I've encouraged them to jump into the conversation, as their behavior has not made me think they take race into account when publicizing their wares, but they may or may not feel comfortable taking on such an issue publically.

Surrender, Dorothy - When I was your age, we just let them ride in the back window.

Rita, you are so right - this is great focus group stuff! I am a marketing professional that has tackled the issues of general versus ethnic marketing, so I thought I'd throw something in this really rich blog stream...

The diversity of thoughts shared here probably have less to do with Black vs Asian vs Latino and more to do with the level of identity that individuals share with their race/ethnicity. We marketing folk like to throw the term "acculturation" around, which is the psychological and social counter-part of cultural diffusion.

Smart marketers know that white America is a very small peice of the puzzle. I'll spare everyone the numbers, but for example, Texas, the state where I live/work/play/love is one of four minority-majority states - a number that will quickly grow. Reaching ethnic/racial minorities is a challenge as marketers like to buy media that reach each audience in nice, neat numbers. However, as writergal pointed out with the example of the Asian clothing store, it isn't always that easy.

With regard to products (I love the Swiffer example)... When marketers look to ethnic audiences, they are really speaking to the those that have a high level of identity with their race/ethnicity. To those with low racial/thnic ID, (writergirl probably fits into this category) it doesn't really matter if the advertisement is directed towards a specific segment. For those with a higher racial/ethnic ID, seeing a message that uses specific language/actors/images may have more meaning. That being said, not all marketers do it well.

Thanks - this is my first entry on BlogHer!

It's great to see this being discussed, race, marital and parental status, ethnicity, all of it.

I was in a conversation recently where I referred to differences in background experiences: I'm female and the other party was male, my background is Slavic and his was Middle Eastern. He suddenly responded in a shocked and angry tone that I was being insulting to him and ended with. "We are all trying to be the same!"

That conversation didn't go much further, but it really made me stop and think about what political correctness has done to us. My parents were WWII immigrants and I didn't learn English until I was 3, when we moved into a neighborhood where the residents all spoke it. I was used to having girlfriends whose first language was different than mine, or whose skin tone was, and we were all fascinated by each others' cultural heritage in a purely innocent way. Being all different kinds was a glorious thing.

The politically correct attitude of trying to pretend our differences don't exist feels like a huge bombed out crater of loss to me.

I blogged about this issue a few weeks ago, because I couldn't NOT blog about it after reading some of these posts. I did get some nice discussion going and I wonder if any PR people have read the various discussions and made any changes based on the feedback.

I'm a single African-American 40- something non-mom . I've been approached by a few businesses to market their services, but not many. I write about food and books, music, and movies, and all sorts of current events. I see people getting free books and different foods to try on their blogs and do wonder sometimes why I don't. It could be that my numbers aren't high enough. I just don't know.

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