The Color of Values (Craig Douglass On Consumers)

Walmart's 2015 ad campaign for its Family Mobile plan featured an interracial cast.

Art imitating life. As I research the notion, I’m struck by the longtime debate over whether art imitates life or simulates it. There is a subtle difference:

The former copies, while the latter creates. It all started with “Poetics,” a work by Aristotle on mimesis, the idea of associating fiction with the realities of the world. Mirroring and mimicking.

What a company stands for, its values, is projected onto the products it makes or the services it provides. If the company is good, the product must be good. And consumers often factor into their purchasing decisions the values for which a brand is known, values with which the consumer, in turn, would like to be associated.

It shouldn’t be a big surprise, then, why over the last three years or so we have seen an increasing number of advertisements, particularly television commercials, featuring interracial couples, their friends and families as the protagonists of the sales pitch. From cars and clothing to insurance, cereal and banking, brands are embracing the values embodied in diversity and aligning themselves with inclusivity.

If corporate imaging wants to reflect the look of America, it’s on the right track. Census data, as analyzed by the Pew Research Center, show interracial marriages nationwide increased from 3 percent of all weddings in 1967 to 17 percent in 2015. The data break down the racial and ethnic couplings, with 38 percent white-Hispanic, 14 percent white-Asian and 8 percent white-African-American. Metropolitan areas of the nation have seen more diverse unions than rural America, recording 18 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

These statistics are far from portraying an America where a majority of married couples or dating singles are interracial. They do, however, provide support for marketers to demonstrate an awareness of the changing demographics of consumers, consumers they want to include in their broad target audiences. More important, perhaps, is the opportunity to promote their corporate values to a growing and evermore engaged segment of our population: millennials.

One study by the Brookings Institution points out that the millennial generation numbers over 75 million, making up nearly a quarter of the total U.S. population — outnumbering baby boomers!

Plus, millennials are the most racially diverse generation in American history, at 55.8 percent white, and nearly 30 percent “new minorities,” meaning Hispanic, Asian and those identifying as two or more races.

Corporate marketers see the future as an array of colors representing progressive consumers with significant buying power.

Speaking of color, a quick story: Two weeks ago in a local restaurant I sat two tables away from a young white female-black male couple who, toting their infant daughter in a portable car seat, were enjoying lunch with the white parents/grandparents. As I admittedly eavesdropped, I heard a conversation of plans for the future, a new home, the baby’s sleeping habits, the dad’s postgraduate studies, the grandparents’ availability to babysit and more. As I watched and listened, the thought crept in about what the post-middle-aged white parents thought when the interracial couple announced their intention to marry. It was my own generational thinking.

Here is the not-so-subtle awakening to a changing world: The white, older couple were not the parents of the young white mother. They were the parents of the young black father. He was adopted.

Coca-Cola, long on the leading edge of recognizing social change, aired in 1971 the “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” commercial. It was called “Hilltop.” In this year’s Super Bowl, the global company introduced a similar 60-second spot titled “The Wonder of Us,” showing Coke-drinking people of different cultures and races. A company spokesman commenting on the commercial to CNN stated, “The spot articulates Coca-Cola’s values of optimism, togetherness, diversity and inclusion.”

Seeing, indeed, promoting the world as it actually is need not be the province of researchers and consumer marketers. It’s all around us to experience, if we will but view it in its vibrant, realistic color. The color of our values.

Craig Douglass is an advertising agency owner, and marketing and research consultant. He is president of Craig Douglass Communications Inc. of Little Rock. Email him at Craig@CraigDouglass.com.