The Power of Social Media in Marketing

Marketing and advertising has continued to evolve and has only gotten bigger in the last ten years. Historians believe marketing has been around since 1500 BCE in Mesopotamian civilizations started mass production of goods that needed to be controlled. As time went on, we saw the evolution of different marketing terms, theories, and mixes. Marketing Mix was first coined by Neil Borden in 1952, which is the key principle to understanding what consumers want and how marketers can appeal to their consumers. From radio ads, television ads, newspaper ads, and in today's world, digital ads, continue to shape how we view and buy products. As people continue to buy products, certain brands are purchased more by different demographics. How are these brands marketing towards specific ethnic groups and how are ads stereotyping race? 

Consumer groups form biases toward groups that are most like themselves within their shared consensus. This is usually referred to as an in-group; which consists of people who share the same characteristics such as race, age, gender, or religion. With this knowledge, many different advertisers use this tactic when they want to market certain products toward different segments, whether that be different races, ethnic groups, or regions of the world. From personal experience, if I am looking to buy some body lotion, I am going to want to know how it works on people that look like me; people of color. When advertisers are trying to figure out what to use in ads and commercials, they use this form of racial stereotyping but they may not realize the negative effects it has on how people buy, use and perceive the product. Companies can create strong advertisements but one can argue certain demographics create a perceived image for that brand, for example, Mielle Hair Oil. 

With apps like Tik Tok and Instagram, consumer trends are always changing day by day. Over the last couple of years, we have seen the growing popularity of Stanley Cups, Hydro Flasks, along with many other water bottles. Lately, we have seen the rise of Mielle hair oil grow significantly in popularity. Mielle hair oil has been a staple in many African-American households for a significant amount of time. Now with the rise of Tik Tok, many non-people of color have gotten their hands on the product and it has many women in the African American community outraged by the increased price and scarcity of the product. Genetically, black women's and black hair, in general, is textured, with many waves and curls, whereas white women’s hair is straight, which has a lot to do with what the Mielle hair oil does to one's hair. Since products for textured hair are hard to come by, many black women were outraged because of the number of white women buying the product that would do nothing to their hair. While this isn't the first time black hair care products have become popular within the white community, it probably won’t be the last. We have seen this happen to other black hair care products such as Shea Moisture; white women said they “discovered” the brand and now the price has gone up and has been bought by Unilever. 

What can be done to address the role of advertising and product usage by big brands and consumers? That's a hard question to answer but there are some solutions that could be discussed to help small and local brands stay true to who they are marketing toward. There is a bigger issue at hand here and there are many topics that I did not get into such as whitewashing which is a whole other realm of marketing toward specific ethnic groups. The issue of “discovering” products by ethnic groups will continue to play a role in marketing toward different races but how can we lessen its effects on products people know and love?