Don’t hug the Duchess! Knowing the cultural constraints of your audiences can make design better and marketing messages stronger.
I graduated from the University of Michigan with two degrees: Art & Design and Sociocultural Anthropology. As you can imagine, this decision has been met with great skepticism (my 94-year-old grandmother hitting the top of the list, with one of my favorite, heartwarming questions, “You take a lot of useless classes, don’t you?”) and comments, such as, “So you’re going to make art for long lost tribes?” and “Wow, that’s … different.” Or, a solid, “Cool!” in a way that makes me positive they have never heard the word, “anthropology” before.
Contrary to popular belief, I did not take anthropology in an effort to make my search for a job in 2014 more challenging. Anthropology, the study of humankind, can provide an interesting perspective on design. So, I’m going to give you my recently graduated, idealist advice, and set a few things straight about anthropology. Not just to prove to my grandmother that I didn’t take History of Hogwarts classes throughout college, but because there is so much to learn through a reflective understanding of our society in relation to marketing and design.
Understanding the Group to Reach the Individual
In marketing and branding, recognizing the cultural norms of each audience is critical, in ways you may not have considered. Symbols and icons can isolate you from your audience, you don’t have take group values into account.
Anthropology is understanding how we, as a group, interact with what we observe around us. Consciously or unconsciously, our perceptions and responses are affected by cultural and regional ideals. Take the color pink. In Europe and most western countries, pink is inherently linked to love and femininity. In Japan, however, it is not a gendered color and, in Thailand, pink is the color associated with Tuesday. Anthropology recognizes and explores how people agree on how something is perceived, based on the social platform laid out before them. As this platform changes with the environment, so does the way we interpret words, symbols, colors, and messages. I imagine that You, my dear reader, who wants to reach customers or donors, can see how this topic is relevant to design.
How Anthropology Began
Let’s start by throwing it all out on the table.
Anthropology used to be a terribly racist and distorted subject. It consisted of white, rich men making assumptions about African and South American tribes that other white, rich people read. This evolved into observing people’s actions and beliefs, not in the context of right and wrong, but rather, in the context of an implemented dominant discourse.
With social progress, anthropology also progressed (beginning with the realization that racism is bad), becoming much more reflective, critical, conceptual, and forward-thinking. Anthropologists study society and how we react to each other within particular communities, environments, and settings. It explains the social concepts behind the actions and thoughts people assume they make on their own but really make because of their social environment. Anthropology is the psychology of the group, which affects the decisions of the individual.
Knowing Your Place
Language is one of the most important indicators of social awareness. Formality, social expectations, and important conversational details can change with environment and social platform. How I am spoken to and how I speak to others, tell me my place in the world. The most basic example of this would be formalities among royalty. A king is glorified with the distancing term, Your Majesty, and spoken to with the utmost formal respect by subjects. In return, the king speaks to those below him essentially however he pleases. Connotations of position, which can shift with culture and region, also affect the actions deemed appropriate. In the United States, celebrity is considered on the same tier as royalty and thus celebrities can speak and do as they wish. In England, this is not the case. Royalty is royalty, not celebrity. Recently, when the Duchess of Cambridge visited New York, she was caught off guard, and visibly uncomfortable, when a star basketball player put his arm around her, a major breach of English etiquette but quite acceptable in the U.S.
Market is a Cultural Undertaking
We all know the idea of catering to your audience as a marketing concept. Part of that requires us to analyze the ways a group as well. How our audiences interprets symbols, color, writing, and simplicity versus extravagance, goes beyond numbers and marketing tests. The public creates, and is manipulated by its own dominant discourse. Understanding this relationship can be extremely beneficial when trying to reach a specific group. So have a little more faith in this misunderstood major of mine. After all, how your audiences acts and thinks is based on a thick network of social and cultural subtleties that go far beyond quantifiable survey results.
By Callie Stewart, a graphic design intern at Red Rooster Group.
