What Families Are Targets of Family-Supportive Marketing?
With all this talk about Family-Supportive Marketing, you may wonder what families are being targeted through this approach. The simple answer is all families, although the approach is not necessarily targeted towards any family in particular. Let me explain.
The US Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor statistics define family as a group of two or more persons residing together who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption. It may or may not include children. Children refer to the family’s own children and include sons, daughters, stepchildren, and adopted children, but not nieces, nephews, grandchildren, other children related to the family and all unrelated children living in the household.
We define “family” as the basic unit of society. Think about it. We are all formed (whether naturally or artificially) from male and female sex cells. So, a family is formed when a child is born. However, for purposes of the Family-Supportive Marketing, family is defined as the basic unit in society consisting of one or two natural or adoptive parents raising their children.
There are many different family structures today – traditional nuclear families where children live with both biological parents, families with adopted children, blended families, single parent families (mom or dad), families with grandparents raising their grandchildren and married couples with no children. All are “targets” for Family-Supportive Marketing, but we’re not marketing to them directly.
Through Family-Supportive Marketing, what we’re trying to do is make sure that relationships are portrayed in a healthy manner through the media, regardless of the family structure. We’re trying to influence the content of programs, websites and publications so it doesn’t undermine families by glamorizing sex, violence, disrespectful behavior, foul language, unhealthy conflict and other attitudes, perceptions and behaviors that may lead to unhealthy relationships. Advertisers shift their promotional spending towards media that is more supportive of families. When enough make the change, the content of media will shift so that we’ll see less content that has the potential to undermine families and more content that depicts behaviors that lead to healthy families. The hope is that this will in turn positively affect actual behaviors in families (and society as a whole).
As businesses adopt Family-Supportive Marketing and inform the public, and when consumers see that a business is serious, it is our hope that people who believe in and want to retain the integrity of families will embrace and patronize the company. In this sense, these families are targets, but they would consist of a subset and cross-section of all of the different types of family units.
Family is the foundation upon which communities are built. It provides the basis for relationships and functioning outside the family. On average, children coming from healthy families are better educated, healthier, more productive and better adjusted than those coming from fractured families. Because of this, businesses have a vested interest in families to ensure that they have a strong talent pool and workforce. Family-Supportive Marketing is one way businesses can create an environment to help families survive.
