Consumers Are Everywhere—Forgetting That Will Get Us Nowhere

I had no idea how ridiculously accurate “Portlandia” was until I moved to the Pacific Northwest.

So do marketers account for the regional differences that still exist in our country? Should they?

I once had a client that operated a business with multiple locations around the country. While the national clients were always looking for economies of scale from our work (i.e., run the same campaign everywhere to save money), the regional marketing directors always insisted that what worked in Chicago wouldn’t work in Louisiana or Kansas. It didn’t matter that from an age/income perspective, the customers were similar.

It’s the subject of my new column on Talent Zoo, which will be on the home page early next week.