Quick guide: Marketing

DiegoPalacios 2022-08-21 21:45:22 UTC #11

i think it comes to those who use diversity as a crutch and dismissing other characterization, marketing and sttorytelling elements.

Diversity is like salt in a dish. It makes the food tastier, but people will not eat a dish that is only salt.

Just like that, diversity can make a story better, but if the story is solid it will not be ALL there is to the story.

NickRowler 2022-08-21 21:50:15 UTC #12

When I looked up the definition of woke, it was a post-Civil Rights movement term used among Black people to tell each other to stay aware of social issues. I guess with the mindset that even though the Civil Rights movement is over, that doesn't mean racism is gone.

OK, so why are people calling Baymax woke???

It just feels like a word that had important meaning which people turned into a political buzzword for anything they don't like.

DiegoPalacios 2022-08-21 21:58:11 UTC #13

yeah, woke is often used as a buzzword to dismiss content or people as virtue signalers/folks who wanna play savior, just like sometimes diversity is used as one to try to sell stuff.....

completely confused about this too.

RobertBMarks 2022-08-21 22:04:29 UTC #14

Sadly, I am an abuse survivor, so there is a pretty heartbreaking answer to the "damn, who hurt you" thing (and no, I'm not going to go into any further details). It's not directly related to this. It does, however, keep me off of a lot of social media, because the normalization of abusiveness makes things like Twitter REALLY bad places for somebody like me to be, and it makes me pretty aware of when somebody in a PR department starts gaslighting the public (because I've had my share of gaslighting inflicted on me).

The thing is that you're not wrong - diversity has become something that causes a knee-jerk reaction on both sides of the aisle. But, I don't think it's enough to just say "here's the problem with how it is being done," even though you are right that I wrote this quick guide because I saw one more piece of PR seppuku and I had just had enough - you have to say how to do it right. You have to walk people through how to think out their selling points and prioritize them. There are people here telling stories about amazing, diverse characters, and the last thing they need is to be dismissed as woke trash when they try to bring their work to the greater public (and make no mistake, I hope they will bring their work to the greater public some day).

(Hell, I'm a Russian Jew - I'm from a marginalized group, one that even the woke hate, and I can count on one hand the number of Biblical epics I've seen about the Old Testament that felt like they could have come from my religion - Noah and Gods and Kings...that's all that comes to mind. Everybody else Christianizes God. So, I know what it's like to see people supposedly represent you and get it wrong.)

The subject can't be talked about unless somebody...well...TALKS about it. And yeah, there are people who are going to have knee-jerk reactions, and who can blame them? You've got one side calling out anybody who objects as a racist, and the other calling out anybody who isn't a white heterosexual character as woke. There's no winning.

I stand by everything I wrote in this - and I will clarify, novellists, please DO talk about your diverse characters! But don't reduce them in your marketing to their skin colour or sexuality - they're so much more than that, and the full tapestry of who they are is what readers will fall in love with and want to see. DO talk about the diversity of your cast and your themes, but don't forget that they are part of a larger picture, and not even the most important part. Sell ALL the important aspects of your work, not just a tiny sliver.

I'm pretty sure they didn't make any money off that - they booked at least a $100 million loss from what I understand. That said, there's actually a really interesting video about why the PR has become this bad by a former network executive. The short version is that new university graduates cost a lot less than experienced professionals with years of proven experience, and a bunch of places like Amazon and Disney started hiring people right out of university to do PR who didn't really know what they were doing. The video is right here:

RobertBMarks 2022-08-21 23:43:30 UTC #15

From what I've been able to gather, the road to where we are now with the word has a few more steps. I can't claim complete accuracy with this timeline - it's just based on what I've observed as a Canadian looking at the American political and pop culture scene from the outside.

It was co-opted at one point by the activist left and for a while came to refer to anybody who was ware of social issues, rather than just those in a particular group (such as the African-American community). The meaning was still fairly benign at that point. But, there were two moments that seemed to really radicalize the two sides of the political aisle, and those were the election of Barrack Obama for the American right, and the election of Donald Trump for the American left.

I think it would be wrong to depict these as inciting incidents. The real inciting incident, as far as I can tell, was the 2008 Financial Crisis. What seemed to happen after that was that the discontent with the system manifested in a radicalization on the right (mainly the Tea Party) along with pushback forcing the other side farther left, and then the election of Donald Trump just pushed the left the rest of the way. And, by the time Trump was elected, this had started manifesting in a full blown culture war. I've spent a lot of my career covering pop culture, and there was a distinct increase in hostility after 2008.

(And even Donald Trump really seemed to me to be more of a molotov cocktail thrown at Washington than an actual serious attempt to elect a workable president. Watching the Republican primaries was FASCINATING - the Republicans did NOT want that man as their candidate, and I remember a couple of articles about the RNC considering changing their primaries rules so that Trump wouldn't win. This was a massive populist "F--- you!" sent to the people in power.)

So, there has been this entrenchment of the two sides that I've seen over the last 14 years, and the way this has manifested on the activist left (and I am using this term to differentiate it from the rest of the left) has been this tendency towards championing things like diversity in a way that is reductionist to the point of absurdity (all black people = victims, all white people = oppressors, etc.) frequently not associated with any actual concrete action, and attempting to silence anybody who dissents (which is now known as cancel culture). The word "woke" has come to be associated with this.

(The far right is pretty nuts too, just in case anybody is worried that I'm picking sides, but the question is the development of the word "woke" into the negative connotations that it has right now, which means talking about what happened on the far left.)

Speaking personally, I gave up on serious pop culture commentary a couple of years ago because of the toxicity. I'd been involved in it to some degree or another since 2000, when I wrote one of the first online video games issues columns in the English language. There was a time when a female Counterstrike player came out and talked about her experience with sexism in the online community, and the general reaction from the community could be summarized as "I had no idea - thank you for sharing this!" That is unimaginable today. I don't actually know if a true marketplace of ideas in the discourse is possible anymore - nobody seems to want to build bridges. Back during the "Puppy wars" I saw members of the supposedly morally upright science fiction community making unironic voter suppression comments that would have been on the wrong side of the civil rights struggle - it was horrifying.

The thing is that OUTSIDE of the discourse, most of the actual population are not members of the far left or far right - they're moderates. One can only hope that one day they regain their voice, but there's a lot of fear out there of cancellation, which I think is one of the reasons this has gone on as long and gotten as bad as it has.

So, sorry to be a downer, but that's what I saw looking in from Canada as a centrist.

NickRowler 2022-08-22 00:01:38 UTC #16

Don't know why you are ranting about American politics, I'm not a Republican or a Democrat or anything. Not sure why telling people who like diversity in media or lesbian vampire shows that they are "too woke" has anything to do with that stuff.

If I wrote a story about a trans person to be read by other transpeople and allies, would that make me woke?

DiegoPalacios 2022-08-22 00:26:45 UTC #17

Here you are hitting an interesting point......audience.

Different stories have different targets in mind, what appeals to a certain group may alienate others. And while some audiences have common interests with other niches, that's not always the case.

Seeking an audience with whom your story can resonate is often a solid strategy that can lead to a profitable and loyal following when it's done in a genuine manner. (and if the niche is big enough to pay the bills)

Here the key word is being genuine, not like Disney's clumsy half assed attempts of the thousands "first gay X"

IndigoShirtProd 2022-08-22 00:29:28 UTC #18

I wanted to ask this earlier after reading through this thread, but decided against it thinking it wasn't a fair question. I have to ask, in this general advice thread about marking, why did you specifically bring up using inclusivity and diversity as a way to market. It just seems like an, to be fair, not entirely unrelated by marginally removed, opinion tacked on to "uncontroversial" advice. Why not just talk about how to market media in one thread and then discuss your issues with diversity marketing in a different thread? It just kind of distracts from what the supposed point of the thread was. I wanted to read some advice about marketing, not have to get into the geopolitical aspects of why I've mentioned the race of a character when I talk about on social media, but that's how I felt walking into this thread.

RobertBMarks 2022-08-22 00:29:47 UTC #19

Well, you wanted to know why the word changed into something with negative connotations - that's the road I saw, and it went through American politics and the culture wars they caused. I physically can't chart that path without talking about them. My view was from the outside looking in - somebody from the United States might have a different view.

Damned if I know without actually reading the story.

If it was a story in which the protagonist is nothing more than a caricature whose main point of characterization is their sexuality, and every single other character is a caricature whose characterization is based solely on their skin colour or sexuality, with next to no exploration of their lives or the complexities of the issues they face, then I would say that falls under the negative connotation of "woke" that right now exists (and, I imagine the people you were writing it for wouldn't enjoy it much either - something I've noticed about the works that meet that negative connotation is that the only people they please are the far left activists).

And if it's not that, I don't see how it could meet the definition of the negative connotation of "woke".

But that's just me and what I've been able to ferret out about it. I've seen a number of characters and stories that I wouldn't define as "negative connotation of woke" in a hundred years condemned for being just that.

NickRowler 2022-08-22 00:37:19 UTC #20

Why would you (someone who is not trans) need to be the one who decides if my story that I wrote as a transperson about a transperson for transpeople is OK by your standards to be classified not by a negative term?

Same goes for media made by black people or anyone outside your identity. It's such a fucked up way to look at media. That is why all this woke labeling makes no sense to me.

sable40k 2022-08-22 00:43:19 UTC #21

Not sure I have much to add in terms of marketing -- I agree with the general idea of making sure the story and its hooks have the spotlight. I'm just impressed that you're tackling an issue that inspires a LOT of instant polarization, but with a fairly even keel.

IIRC you do a bunch of reviews on the Discord too, right? Wish you luck rebuilding your audience

RobertBMarks 2022-08-22 00:45:11 UTC #22

Well, you probably won't like the answer, but because at this point they're linked, for better or worse.

Here's how this should work (and how, 10 years ago, it would have worked) - I'd have talked about identifying your selling points, how to priortize and order them, and left it at that. No discussion of how to avoid PR seppuku, no discussion of diversity marketing one way or the other. And then, I'd end by saying that if you want to see good examples in action, look at Disney, and Marvel, and CBS, and the BBC, and so on..

You might be starting to see the problem here. Every single exemplar that comes to mind to give seems to be in a race to find the fastest way to alienate their own fanbases. There's a massive negative example that stands as the elephant in the room, and it has to get addressed somehow. I honestly don't like having to do it, but I'm also REALLY tired of watching it play out, and if just one person reads this, goes on to get big, and DOESN'T make these mistakes, I'll call it a win.

RobertBMarks 2022-08-22 00:49:52 UTC #23

Because YOU literally asked ME "If I wrote a story about a trans person to be read by other transpeople and allies, would that make me woke?"

If you don't think that I am qualified to give you an answer, then don't ask me the question. I'll answer any question as best I can, and I can't promise I'll be right every time, but I'll always try my best - particularly in a matter as complex and controversial as this - but asking somebody a question like that and then complaining that they're not qualified to give you an answer is a pretty dick move.

And I would point out just how much uncertainty was baked into my answer...as well as the fact that I only ventured to talk about the story, and not the person writing it.

DiegoPalacios 2022-08-22 00:49:58 UTC #24

I think the main reason people reacted as they did during this topic, is because many folks here make content that genuinely appeals to said audiences these big companies clumsily tried to aim to.

I guess you probably didn't want to put them in the same sack as Disney, Marvel, etc........but without a clarification, a misunderstanding was kinda bound to happen.

IndigoShirtProd 2022-08-22 00:57:57 UTC #25

Yeah, I realize they are. You said diversity marketing, I got that much.

You don't have to, you owe no one the grace of advice on the topic. It seems like you just wanted to. I was just thinking it seems like the type of discussion that would thrive more if it wasn't attached to general marketing advice. There's plenty that could be said about the topic all on it's own.

I don't think there's much to misunderstand here, I just found it off putting when I wanted to read about general marketing and advice about it, and instead faced a discussion about marketing based on "superficial" traits of characters. Though, the fault is on my part; I assumed the discussion would go into the technical aspects of marketing not the philosophical or political.

NickRowler 2022-08-22 01:04:33 UTC #26

Well, I am not a far left activist (whatever that means) but I have also had people call me a leftie (probably because I am LGBT and I like diversity). Maybe by what you told me so far, I need to embrace the wokeness and make it my whole identity. Maybe it will fill the void of my lack of political alignment.

DiegoPalacios 2022-08-22 01:27:13 UTC #27

Well...personally i prefer more technical advice too.........if i had a summary of OP's points:

-Find your selling points: Focus on the main selling of your story. (premise, genre and what sets it apart from other stories of said genre) then as it's name says, complement it with your secondary selling points. (characters, world building, and what makes these things special)

-make a blurb with your selling points mentioning first the key selling points and then the secondary ones......

-don't be toxic, don't guilt trip your audience and don't get in unneccesary online conflicts.

-diversity by itself is not a selling point. It can help, but would be more like a tertiary selling point. (I would say this can be secondary depending of the genre and the topics it handles.)

-Alienating your main audience to pander to a new one is a poor choice. Specially if done in a mediocre way......

IndigoShirtProd 2022-08-22 01:37:16 UTC #28

Well it's a quick guide, so I didn't expect him to go into too much detail (or any more detail than he already has). I just assumed the discussion would branch out into the nitty gritty details of marketing and not what did happen. But that was my wrong assumption.

And I just want to mention, not that anyone asked, it's not as though I don't think it can or should not be discussed, just that it would be more productive isolated in it's own topic in my opinion.

TheLemmaLlama 2022-08-22 01:41:07 UTC #29

Okay, so to summarize the opinion of literally everyone here: diversity good, shallow tokenism bad

/thread

Jenny-Toons 2022-08-22 01:43:03 UTC #30

Hi ya'll --

Kinda noticed the thread was escalating just a bit, so I wanted to jump in and remind peeps to keep chill and vibe. If need be, there's never a wrong time to get up and come back to the convos at a later time or reread replies before sending.

Don't wanna close the thread since marketing (especially in terms of demographics) is a good convo to have, but just wanted to send out that reminder.

Have a night evening everyone!

Jenny