Psyops, operational and/or ideological
Hi Marc,
We encountered the same problems in then Zäire. 5th group had come in with its own CA and Psyops. Some, much like the agency's folks, could even listen to local broadcasting in Lingala (but they would never grasp the local meanings, nor could they communicate in Lingala when the situation dictated). When they decided on the target audience for this mission, they also overlooked those "oral culture" folks who from an ideological sense, would not be the least bit impressed or even pay attention.broadcast media rather than on the particular media used by a given audience (e.g. the newer interactive media or the older "oral culture" media). At the ideological level, there is very little sophistication or cultural appropriateness in the message.
To some extent, we experience this operational vs ideological scenario even here in Estonia. It's more divided by age rather than ideological or cultural aspects, but rings the same tone.
We would later collate the info and carefully compare it against our target audience, coming up with a broader approach to our end goal.
Regards, Stan
Originally Posted by Stan Reber
. Even without the language barrier problem, there is still the problem of identifying the demographic slice with the best ROI and the appropriate way of targeting that group. On of the examples that comes to mind is "peer marketing". This is where a company will hire a bunch of teenagers to a) listen to what teens are saying and report back, and b) show off "their" (i.e. their companies / employers) products. It uses word of mouth, rumour and F2F media technologies.
. The best way to handle it, is to work on the assumption that medium usage tends to be age segmented, and ideological/cultural stuff tends to be role segmented. Ideally, your ideological message is based in a solid philosophical exposition that can the be tailored for each target segment (yeah.... too much time doing market research 
).
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