Summary

If you compare media advertising, whether television or print, versus earlier generations, there is a tremendous amount of adversity now in today’s advertising world that essentially attempts to incorporate all races and minorities. By comparing today’s media and advertising with previous generations, it is evident that there have been significant changes to not only who marketers are targeting, but also who the media is attempting to focus on, perhaps even attempting to expand their cultural horizons. Take for example the television show for kids, Dora the Explorer; Dora is a popular icon to children in today’s generation and the kids who watch this show are exposed to an entirely new culture that previous generation did not even have the option of exploring. With that said, we have made progress in this country, and we are on the right path. Where previous generations were only capable of watching television sitcoms based off of white families and advertisements targeting white consumers, we are now seeing a plethora of diversity through advertising as well as the media. Where the media may have been a more difficult area to diversify in this country, advertising was less of an issue to pertain to the different cultures.

Businesses recognize that Americans may be white, black, brown, or yellow, but their money is all green. In her article, “The Impact of Market Segmentation on African American Frequency, Centraility, and Status in Television Advertising,” Karie Hollerbach addresses the fact that African Americans were the first racial minority group to be targeted by businesses through television marketing. In her article, Hollerbach recognizes the fact that advertising is system that is constantly flowing and adapting to target their audiences. She discusses the importance of the socioeconomic level of the target audience states: “…as the consumer power of African Americans was recognized by the marketing industry, African American advertising depictions increased…” This goes to show that marketers are not “racist,” they are simply after money and will do whatever it takes to get the consumer’s dollar in their pocket.