Hating Half Your Audience Is Not A Good Business Plan
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
184.4554
Summary
Why do companies and entertainers think it's okay to alienate a large portion of their potential consumer base and audience? Is it okay to call people who don't vote the way they think they should vote? Or are they racist or homophobe?
Transcript
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Hi, it's John down in the basement having a cup of coffee Saturday, November the 23rd.
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And on my mind this morning is something I've been thinking about for almost the last week,
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okay? And it's a question. Maybe you can answer the question in the comments below. But why do
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a lot of companies and entertainers think it's okay to alienate a large portion of their possible
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consumer base and audience? And the reason I'm bringing this up is because of what you're seeing
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on the screen right now. These people. Now the car company Jaguar, Jaguar as we say here in Canada,
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seem to think these people are going to sell them a lot of cars. And over the last five or six days
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there's been a lot of comments regarding the advertisement that features these creatures
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you're seeing right here. Now let me ask you this. Is this representative of anybody in society today?
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I would say no. But the people who are critical, first of all, they realize that there's no car
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in the commercial that's selling cars and they think that Jaguar is trying to push a message to
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them, okay? And you can come to your own conclusion on that. But instead of trying to explain what the
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commercials are trying to sell, Jaguar is basically alienating a lot of people who might buy their cars
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by calling them bigots, racists, and homophobes, all right? Which isn't a good idea. Now kudos to the
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marketing campaign. They're certainly getting a lot of comments and a lot of eyes on the commercial.
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But we'll have to wait and see if it sells any cars. Now up next, this is Joy Reid. Now she is a
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commentator on MSNBC. And she seems to think it's okay to alienate half the potential audience she has
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out there. She seems to think it's all right to call people who don't vote the way she thinks they
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should vote or think the way she thinks they should think. Racists. And she thinks it's okay
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to bring up a white supremacy on the air all the time. Now I don't watch MSNBC, but I've seen enough
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videos of this woman to know that she is a racist and she really hasn't got a place on TV at all.
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I mean, if you're, if I've ever been in the radio business, which I have, or if you've ever done
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anything in TV, which I have, you realize that the more people that see the commercials that are on
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your channel or station, the more money you make, the more profits you make to pay the people who
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are actually on air. I don't think this person is doing any good for MSNBC. And it's quite possible
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she could be out of a job soon because MSNBC is about to be sold. Which brings us to Star Wars.
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Okay, so I love the first three Star Wars movies. I saw the first one when I was 12 years old and it
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was right in my wheelhouse. And it's an amazing storied franchise with millions and millions of
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people who love Star Wars. But in recent years, I've seen a few other movies, don't like them all
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that much. And recently, by watching people who are critics of entertainment on YouTube and whatnot,
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they don't like the message that's being passed along by Star Wars. And they really don't like
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the stories that are being portrayed on Star Wars at all. So they're very critical of it.
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Now, instead of trying to right the ship, Disney, which owns Star Wars, has thought the best thing
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to do is to piss off the very people they need to watch their movies by calling them racists and
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homophobes and on and on and on. Which brings us to my final conclusion here and my final example.
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Late night talk. Okay, I don't have cable and I don't watch Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert or Jimmy
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Fallon. But I've seen enough of them on TV to know that these people don't seem to like half of the
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United States and half of their audience. Jimmy Kimmel, after the election, went on TV and cried
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and basically called a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump idiots. Not in those words, but that's
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what he was leading to. Now, for some reason, these guys seem to think it's okay to piss off half their
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audience. And I go back to the point I just made about Joy Reid, that you need people to watch your show,
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to watch your advertisements, to make a profit, to make money for the people who work on your network.
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And these people aren't doing themselves any favors by pissing off half the people who could be
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watching them. Which leads me to the final point, which I'll leave to Johnny Carson. He appeared with
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Barbara Walters years ago and he was asked something about this and this is what he had to say.
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When you come out and do your monologues, which are really based on what you've read,
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do you go home and worry about things? Do you worry about this country? Are there things that
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You're going to get serious, aren't you? A little bit. I think one of the dangers,
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if you are a comedian, which basically I am, if you start to take yourself too seriously
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and start to comment on social issues, your sense of humor suffers somewhere. I've seen other people
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whose names I won't mention who do humor. And then somewhere along the line, they start to
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want to make their views known. I try to do it humorously. I try not to, and we've had some
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criticism on the show. Some critics over the years say, well, the show has no great sociological
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value. It's not controversial. It's not deep. The Tonight Show basically is to amuse people,