I just got back from doing EITC outreach at the mall. It wasn't very affective for several reasons that are based in anthropological observations that I want to comment on for the future. My thoughts are about audience culture. At the mall we have several difference audiences. I believe our marketing style should reflect a consciousness of it. The people we need to reach at the mall are not a homogeneous group.
Our first, and earliest to arrive, audience is the mall employees. Here are the mid-level management, younger clerks, sales representatives, part-time workers, and especially the young workers. They arrive at the mall before the shops are even open. They spend their time in each kiosk. They will not be reached from a booth. I observed that at the earliest time of the morning, many of them were playing on their smart phones, or doing upkeep and organization of the shops. This is a good time for interventions because they haven’t been disturbed by customers yet.
To reach them, they do need to be lobbied by visiting them at their place of business and talked to more. They are the working people who the EITC is for. They are best approached first thing in the morning as they arrive for their shifts, but before their customers come. In the future, we should prepare a 2-sided quarter sheet flier that we can hand to mall employees, but also target break areas and restrooms, and food establishments that the employees use. These are also good for shops near the mall, but who may not be in the building because they are the same audience.
The only caveat is that under the contract with the mall, this direct interaction may have to be clandestine, but best is if it were worked out in advance with the contract of the booth. I couldn’t, from my observation standpoint or previous experience, determine if the part-time workers, who are our biggest audience, are most likely to be at the mall on Saturday mornings, or Friday evenings. Mid-day shift changes are the hardest to contact employees at because customers are already present.
Our second audience is the mall shoppers there to purchase goods. The mall is the essential middle-class experience. The mall is about quantity, not quality of objects. For those who make enough money to go shopping at a mall setting, they are attracted to options. They are attracted by desire. If you look around the mall, every store is set up to display options and attracts attention from the people looking for that "something" unique to them. Upper class people don't use the mall, because they are about quality; they find their needs met in boutiques that sell their image. In the lower class, you go to a big-box store to buy a pair of pants to fit your needs. The middle class goes to the mall to “discover” pants that fit their desires. They want choices, and even to be overwhelmed by choices. We do that by using enticing collateral. Affective boothing needs to recognize this. This topic I will also address under the issue of collateral attraction to social services, and rant about class inequality, in a future blog.
Next year, we should set up the booth in such a way to mimic and meet the expectations the (lower) middle class people we are trying to reach. They want an experience usually reserved for the upper class. We can use the same booth, similar literature, and but tailor our marketing supplies and boothing techniques. I would suggest the use of technology as a way to be innovative in our approach. Also popular are “free” and “collectable/valuable” objects. I think that there are products that can help us maintain our integrity in this outreach. Besides pens, clever objects with resource referral logos/phone numbers, could be affective tools. I will continue to explore options in this category.
There is a sub-segment of “mall shoppers” we are trying to reach, who not there for “shopping” at all. There is an audience who are shopping addicts, they may even be shopping for entertainment. These people are not just intended EITC participants, but those in need of financial literacy. We should keep in mind that we have something valuable to the improvement of their life, in cases where the addiction may be leading to financial problems. While the EITC’s direct purpose may not apply to them getting money so they can spend more, it is a great place for some mild intervention, and/or consciousness raising. These are the folks who asset building with the EITC is the most valuable. They may have plenty of money, but are they asset poor because of their shopping addiction. We can have materials available to cater to this audience while enticing them to the EITC.
The third audience is seniors who are mall-walkers. We should also keep in mind the times we are there will have these audiences. Saturday mornings will be the mall walkers, especially seniors. Having marketing on the booth (temporary as it may be) that continues to draw their eye, and may even change over the course of the morning as they circle the mall, would be more effective and engaging to outreach. They may not need the service, but they may have children or friends who need a referral to the service. We can’t get recognition by ignoring them.
A fourth audience is the young families and children are at the mall in the morning, especially near the Humane Society. They are another target that needs to be spoken too, and attracted. Having children-eye-level activities or materials will bring the parents, especially those who use the mall as child entertainment. It is also fascinating how this is enculturating children into the middle class, but I digress. Parents will go to a kiost and become engaged where their children are engaged too. This is very different from the seniors or mall employees style of marketing. If we were to incorporate the child educational experience in this target, would also be of benefit.
There is another group that I am less clear about from my experience, but I saw pieces of today. They are the mallrats. They are teenagers, mostly, who are partially there for shopping as entertainment, but also use the mall as a community center. They are there for social reasons. I expect to find them at the mall on our Friday evening outreach, but would not see them on a Saturday morning. They are not a target audience, but they may be a future audience, and another place for mild financial education, if we desired to reach them.
This is a class and culture based approach to outreach. There are not many minority folks who spend lots of time at the mall as shoppers, so some things we do to be inclusive, may not be the most effective. If we keep in mind our audience and intended goals of engaging people on their level to communicate about the EITC.
While many of these audiences may overlap, we should keep them in mind when expanding our outreach. I would like to, in the future, see some of the money available in the marketing budget (which this year was $5k) be spent on campaign materials that help with this form of outreach. This is also a place where money being spent can be on supplies that can be used yearly, making it a better investment than door hangers. It will also be useful at the yearly awareness day, and pay off will be longer than radio or print advertising.
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