There are many ways companies can demonstrate that they don’t know their target audience:
- Ignoring their needs
- Offering junk they don’t want
- Marketing to them where they aren’t
- Rushing a decision
- Acting familiar when you’re a stranger
- Charging a price they can’t afford
But, rarely does a major company so flagrantly misunderstand its customer than McDonald’s has done with its new offering, the 1/3 pounder.
As comedian Bill Maher noted on his show last Friday:
Don’t worry about your kids getting fatter, just because McDonalds is trying to move them from the Quarter Pounder to a new 1/3 Pounder. It won’t work. They’re American kids. They don’t know a third is bigger than a quarter.
Knowing your audience means having a sense of its limitations as well as its needs and wants.
I’ve always been annoyed by suggestions that I should simplify my writing with smaller words and shorter sentences. I always felt like I was dumbing it down, when, actually, it was requiring me to communicate more clearly. In the global economy, this makes sense, since not everyone’s first language is English.
No one says you can’t market to the smart teenagers, the erudite blog readers or the wealthier house-husbands. You can slice your target audience any way you choose.
However, you must stay conscious of the fact that fractions, big words and high prices will eliminate some of your potential buyers. If you choose to do so, you’re honing the target. If you accidentally do so …
Well, that’s just unenlightened.
