Ignoring Markets
by Miki Saxon
I watch TV on a 27” screen. I don’t like large screens and I have no interest in watching on a smartphone or even an iPad.
I also have rotten hearing, so I use closed captioning.
Did you know there are 35 million people like me in the US?
Not a giant market, but not one to completely ignore, especially when you add in all their relatives, friends, etc.
Yet that is what most advertisers do.
How do I know?
Because they don’t bother with captioning.
Congress requires video programming distributors (VPDs) – cable operators, broadcasters, satellite distributors and other multi-channel video programming distributors – to close caption their TV programs.
But not ads.
It’s not just that they don’t care about us (the hearing impaired), but it’s an active insult along the lines of hearing impaired = can’t/won’t purchase.
Think I’m exaggerating?
Women’s fashion couldn’t be bothered designing for curvy women, because if they cared how they looked they would lose weight/didn’t care about fashion/no money/ignorant/dumb, until it was the only market that offered growth — and the growth is enormous.
Even so, fashion doesn’t caption its ads, nor do automobiles, retail, financial, communications companies, sports equipment, food, the list is endless, although there are exceptions in every category.
Who always captions?
Drug companies (of course).
Granted, it’s changing, but very, very slowly.
Image credit: Rosenfeld Media
