Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 9, 1994 TAG: 9407210042
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WILLIAM F. POWERS THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If you choose to ponder such questions as who exactly receives the information picked up by bar-code scanners, and why product warranty cards ask you to state your annual income, you might want to add American Demographics to your reading list. The cover story this month suggests that anyone hoping to sell a new product or service nationally ought to test-market it in the most average of all American cities: Baltimore.
Baltimore the most average? What about those allegedly bland Middle American cities that coastal types are always flying over - places like Columbus and Muncie?
Actually, in the strict demographic sense, based on census data about age, race and income levels, Baltimore is not average at all. Rather, Judith Waldrop writes, it is the typical American metropolitan area because it is ``the place with the most All-American attitudes.''
And just how did Waldrop reach that conclusion?
Baltimore was deemed triumphantly average by a ``psychographic consumer segmentation program,'' which holds that ``all Americans fall into one of eight lifestyle categories.'' Each of these categories has a shorthand name, such as ``Strivers,'' ``Experiencers'' and ``Fulfilleds.''
At the bottom of the American heap in this system are the ``Strugglers,'' described as follows: ``Brand loyal. Use coupons and watch for sales. Trust advertising. Watch TV often. Read tabloids and women's magazines.''
And at the top are the ``Actualizers,'' the very masters of our society: ``Enjoy the ``finer things. Receptive to new products, technologies, distribution. Skeptical of advertising. Frequent readers of a wide variety of publications. Light TV viewers.''
Greater Baltimore has about the same proportion of people in each category as America at large, which means about 16 percent Strugglers, about 8 percent Actualizers, and so on.
Now that the word is out, if you live in Baltimore you should prepare for your telephone to begin ringing and for strange new products to start appearing in stores: You are about to become a corporate guinea pig. To escape, consider moving to Bridgeport, Conn., which American Demographics reports is the least average of American towns (too many Actualizers, for one thing).
A year's subscription (12 issues) costs $69. Write to: American Demographics, P.O. Box 50246, Boulder, Colo. 80321-0246.
\ While American Demographics uncritically touts the value of the latest market-research methods, at least one magazine is busy asking questions about their human costs.
Adbusters Quarterly is a renegade journal published by a Vancouver, B.C., organization called the Media Foundation, which encourages resistance to what it views as cultural brainwashing.
Adbusters has won some renown for its parodies of familiar ads - the current issue features sendups of Nike, Calvin Klein and Benetton, among others. But it also offers provocative articles by people who believe that tobacco companies and other multinationals are increasingly running our lives, and ought to be reined in.
In the summer issue's cover story, Rick Crawford contends that the technological power of big companies - exemplified by sophisticated market research - is turning us all into prisoners of the consumer society, with diminishing privacy and freedom.
One year's worth of Adbusters (four issues) costs $18. Write to: The Media Foundation, 1243 W. Seventh Ave., Vancouver, B.C., V6H 1B7, Canada.
by CNB