The Top 11 Overused Target Audience Generalizations

Fall is in the air. We’ll soon grow used to the dull roar of leaf blowers, loud chants of striking red-shirted teachers, and yet another season of heartbreaking Bears losses. Meanwhile, ad agencies are in the midst of the early fall scramble of finalizing next year’s spending in desperate hopes that half-baked viral video schemes will slide through aggressive rounds of budget cuts. And if, by chance, they do, you bet your bottom dollar most marketing plans rely on these Top 11 Overused Target Market Generalizations:

11. Anyone watching TV after midnight is in need of a home gym and/or phone sex.

10. Kids love any product with a theme song they can serenade others with for hours on end.

9. From Dos Equis to Miller Lite, beer drinkers need validation that their vice of choice still makes them appealing to the opposite sex.

8. All businessmen are handsome yet approachable white guys who wear casual slacks and tailored shirts and are single-handedly responsible for global warming due to their excessive use of hair products.

7. Twenty-somethings are hipsters, easily persuaded to buy a product or service with the use of tilt-shift and sepia-toned Instagram shots.

6. Housewives are starched oxford shirt-wearing supermoms who would do anything—literally anything—for chocolate, yogurt, or a night with John Stamos.

5. Teenagers are attracted to anything that contains blood, boobs, bombs, or Bieber (or ideally all four).

4. Dads are oblivious beer-drinking sports fanatics who have little to no influence on the dynamics of their families.

3. All senior citizens are frail shells of their former selves who are incapable of blowing their noses without endangering their own lives.

2. Democrats are all whiney liberals and college kids who want to move to Europe.  Republicans are all Yankee-hating yahoos who sleep with shotguns under their pillows.

1. Anyone in the world will watch/click/share any marketing ploy that includes a cat video. Which reminds us….

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