I'm working on ads for Calvin College's biennial Festival of Faith & Music and came across this on Relevant Magazine's advertising web page:
The 18-to-34 demographic is ours. We've made a science of speaking to the needs, wants and interests of this generation like no one else. You need our audience. Our audience wants your products. You need to get RELEVANT.
What in the world is this crap? I can't figure out how a Christian publication would think that this kind of market-driven language is appropriate when talking about people. I'm supposedly in Relevant's demographic, but here are my initial responses to reading this:
- You do not own a demographic or the people therein. They are not yours. I am not yours.
- The 18-34 demographic is not a monolithic entity, despite what marketing agencies would have you think.
- I am not the subject of a science experiment.
- What does it mean that I want so little of the stuff advertised in your magazine? Maybe you haven't figured out the "needs, wants and interests" of me or my entire generation.
- Apparently Relevant views its readers as primarily consumers, just like every other entity in the empire of global consumerism.
- Is this what "relevant" means? I've never understood the magazine's name, but perhaps this is a clue.
It seems to me that Christian publications should be more interested in fostering genuine community--shalom, if you will--than in reducing entire groups of people into possible economic transactions. I think it would be wise for Relevant to revisit this statement ...
