Marketing to Rednecks &
Goobers.
(How folks in "fly over" country respond to advertising.)
In “fly over” country there is a very
large segment of people, people like me, who live in small towns across America.
In my view, many in the media, and ad
agencies on the east and west coasts, believe that what we think here in “fly
over country” is not very important.
They believe we are too stupid to “get it”. It seems like much advertising is
written for the people in big cities and highly educated. The rednecks and goobers call them the artsy
fartsy crowd.
You remember Goober right? He was on The Andy Griffith Show,
played by actor and comedian named
George Lindsey played the part. Gomer Pyle on the show ( played by Jim Nabors) also was a
goober. You know what rednecks are too right? They are red around the back of
their neck from fishing, or farming or hunting, riding bulls in a rodeo, or
some other really Redneck or Goober activity. They mostly live in places like
Possum Trot, or Monkey’s Eyebrow, Kentucky or Bland Missouri. They have cell
phones, and they buy stuff like guns, pickup trucks and SUV’s. They buy
cigarettes, cigars, Budweiser, Jack Daniels and lots of Cadillac’s. (Remember
Elvis??) They are country music fans and they buy billions of dollars of CD’s of
people like Ray Stevens, Charlie Daniels, Larry the Cable guy, Jeff Foxworthy
and lots of other redneck and goober stuff. These people I’m talking about are the ones
watching reruns of Hee Haw on RFD TV.
My wife is a very intelligent person even though she did not go to college. She is the General Manager over a very successful group of businesses, she figured out how to do QuickBooks by herself, she publishes two online newsletters, and does all the changes to our website, raised three children to adulthood and she’s a Saint because she has put up with me for 30 years!
On many occasions, while we are watching TV, a commercial comes on and after it’s over she says, “Now just what the heck is it they were advertising?” This is what I am saying. If they can’t reach my wife, how can they reach the Rednecks and Goobers? It seems to me that those people writing and producing many of today’s commercials, tend to think that everyone thinks like them. That ain’t true. They tend to think that what they think is funny, everyone will think is funny. That ain’t true either.
At least half of the commercials that come on TV my sweet wife sits there and says, “That’s really stupid commercial” Then she always mutes the TV when it comes on again. Do you think she will make a purchase from businesses that she thinks is running “stupid commercials”? As rednecks and Goobers would say: “It ain’t likely”. Some of those ads seem to talk down to us rednecks and goobers and make us feel like we are beneath them.
Then other commercials like Geiko, Allstate, State Farm,
Target, we leave the TV un-muted and
watch and listen to the whole thing. Those ads are believable, sometimes
entertaining, they are not insulting, they are NOT hype, they are not full of cliché’s
they are relating to her and taking to us in a way we can understand.
Will the rednecks and goobers listen to your ads or turn them off? In future post we will have many examples of both.









Here are the 
