I'm excited to announce that I'm a recently minted instructor at UCLA in their Business and Management Continuing Executive Education Program. As I write this post, a Slick Rick verse comes to mind... "Teacher, teacher, tell me how you do it. It looks kinda easy like there was nothing to it." Ok, I'll stop writing this as a stream of conscience.
I'll be teaching a class on multicultural/ethnic/diversity marketing beginning in January. Executives who enroll will learn about resources to develop marketing strategies and how corporations, organizations and small business owners can tap into this $2 trillion market.
Here's my class description...
"Diversity Marketing is the effort to communicate a believable story, celebrating commonalities and honoring differences across diverse consumer segments, to influence future consumption. How is this different than what is learned in Marketing 101? The fundamentals are the same, with the success of any marketing strategy relying on effective segmentation and sound understanding of your consumers. However, in Diversity Marketing, the key is to focus on the evolving implications associated with engaging diverse consumer segments – a focus to not be taken lightly or over-simplified."
This is a good thing. Business execs need to get past their media driven assumptions and really learn how to approach different cultural groups in a manner that is supportive and understanding while still being good and creative.
All to often the sensitive approach comes off as forced and dishonest or just plain silly. Please teach them how to reach me.
Posted by: Mike W | October 22, 2009 at 03:41 PM