As part of our 'One hour Hit' we were challenged to create a campaign for New York City football club, a new club that was was owned in partnership between Manchester City, and the New York Yankees (a baseball team). The brief was to market this new team to New Yorkers. This brief put me out my comfort zone as i do not follow football, at all. I don't know much about it and the only thing i could relate to this brief was that i visited New York City once...when i was 11. How much insight could i remember from the this huge metropolitan city, from a 4 day trip, that took place over 10 years ago.
There is a danger of stereotyping in this campaign, because none of us knew much about New York City. And playing on stereotypes just would not work. Our brainstorm about New York City football club, may as well have been titled "every offensive and flattering stereotype you can think of about New Yorkers" The advert we came up with was basically an indication of our uninformed ignorance of NYC/football stereotypes. Don't get me wrong, stereotyping can be invaluable especially in a short 30 second advert, stereotyping a character can be a useful tool in getting the characters personality across. It tells us who to trust, who is the villain/hero, who we are supposed to identify with.
However Douglas Kelner write that in today's post-modernist society we accept a more 'fragmented 'self'' of identity. So does stereotyping even work anymore in advertising? Or do we now find it unidentifiable and offensive?
Most people find their own cultural stereotypes, at the very least irritating, usually they are based on a grain of truth that has been exaggerated. Contrary to this, Fosters advertising has embraced their Australian background and used it as their unique selling point. Everything about the advert is masculine and Australian. And it does work. Fosters is the second best selling lager, behind Carling.
"It's the product advertised on both sides of the Atlantic as "Australian for lager". If you believed the ads you'd think that modern Australian men love nothing more than kicking back at the beach club with a fridgeful of Foster's. This stereotype-heavy depiction of brand loyalty traces back to the 1980s UK ads featuring Paul "Crocodile Dundee" Hogan swigging pints of "the amber nectar" in British settings, dispensing catchphrases ("What a ripper!") and anecdotes about the lager's popularity back home.
The reality is that if you walked into a bar in Australia and ordered a Foster's, you might well receive some quizzical looks - it's a long way down the popularity list and almost unheard of in some parts of the country, making a mockery of slogans such as "Think Australian, Drink Australian". It's brewed under license in Britain, its biggest international market, where it ranks as the country's second most popular lager."
- Kris Griffiths (How Australian is Fosters?)
Sometimes stereotyping work, sometimes it doesn't. The challenge is finding a stereotype that the country will relate to and not find offensive or a bit stupid. It needs to be treating with sensitivity and if you get that right you can successfully manage to communicate with that National Identity.
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