I linked to this article in my Sunday Morning reading post but wanted to expand on it a bit. The article, Companies Without Conversations, highlights Hasbro, Mattel, and Target, as three businesses that don't get it, regarding blogs, conversations, and how the world is supposedly changing around them.
I was most intrigued by the Target part of the story. Here's the quote from the Target mouthpiece:
Good Morning Amy, Thank you for contacting Target; unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest. Once again thank you for your interest, and have a nice day.
If you have "core guests" that implies you have guests that you don't really care about that are outside of the "core." Telling. Damning. Brutal.
Reminds me of my days back in the Chicago theatre scene when the theatres were arguing for better newspaper coverage. We were told, "we don't think our readers have enough interest in this." Of course the reply was, hey, "I'm one of your readers." What we didn't understand when we tried to counter with that argument is that while we may have been readers, we weren't in the core. Meaning, we didn't make up the majority of folks who don't pay all that much attention.
That point was driven home to me on an election day in Chicago. I was working at the Theatre Building, a three theatre complex that had a large lobby. I drew the short straw for Election Day duty. My job was to come in early, open up and let the election officials set up. During that day I watched the stream of traffic come in and out to vote. Located, at that time in a reasonably upscale neighborhood, (it is much more upscale today), we assumed folks who came in were not only our neighbors, but knew what we did there. Yet as I watched the voters come in to do their duty, I realized just how far removed they were from the business of our complex. I'm guessing a very small percentage of those folks ever attended a show there or paid any attention to the burgeoning Chicago theatre scene. In many ways, they were the real Chicagoans, or as Target says, the core.
Those who pay attention and share their thoughts and concerns publicly on blogs or in other ways, probably are outside the core. Although the rise of blogs (and other Internet forms of communication) has given rise to the number who do share their thoughts and concerns, it seems to make very little difference in the equation that totals up the core. And I think most folks in business like it that way. Politics too. There are some folks running hard for the presidency who are really counting on it right now.
Too much depends on those who don't pay attention staying blissfully in that state. While blogs might be empowering and opening up a few "naked conversations" here and there, and some have jumped on the Clue Train, I would argue that the core audiences of those conversations are smaller in number than those who strike them up would like to admit.
Target came clean with some brutal honesty. Those of us outside of the core should pay close attention to that.
