Best Prosthetic Leg

I was cheated out of 1st place in a 5K run by an amputee! How do I protest this?

I have been an avid runner for years now with quite a portfolio of marathon wins. My latest race was an annual 5K and I had this race won (or so I thought). Upon the last ¼ mile an amputee sprinted ahead so quickly and I could not catch up. The amputee won the race.

I am an amputee. Anytime you would like to change places with me for a month,please let me know. I wouldn't want you to feel disadvantaged. I would love to be able to run,something I have never done in my life.
Trying to explain to you the difficulty and discomfort associated with wearing a prosthesis would be futile. You couldn't even begin to understand.

A Diverse Set of Problems

Let’s try an experiment. I want you to form a mental image of “Joe Sixpack.”

Advertising people talk about “Joe Sixpack” all the time. But what does he look like?

Picture him in your mind. Look away from the screen until you’ve got him pictured…then come back and read the rest.

Got a picture?

OK. Now…let me ask you a question:

Is he black?

I’d be willing to bet the “Joe Sixpack” you pictured in your mind was a white dude. With a beer belly, sitting on the couch, holding a beer, watching NASCAR or something like that. Right?

It’s not a particularly flattering image, but I’ve heard numerous clients and ad professionals refer to the imaginary “Joe Sixpack” as some sort of average typical consumer–and proceed to commit millions of dollars to messages targeting that very type of person.

But in reality, we have no idea who “Joe Sixpack” is. It’s just another condescending stereotype. And stereotypes and prejudices have a special place in the advertising industry. We call them “demographics.”

We’re living in an age in which marketers are desperate to reach disparate audiences. Whether it’s using CRM, segmentation, targeted marketing, or whatever you’d like to call it, the search is on to know as much as we can about every single customer.

But it can’t be done.

The problem is, most marketing is mass marketing. Even if you break your audience into 200 different segments for some direct marketing initiative, you’re still mass marketing. It will never, ever be truly one-on-one marketing, lest you unleash an army of door-to-door salespeople. We have to make assumptions. We have to make guesses. Because human behavior isn’t as predictable as we wish it could be. And we don’t have the budgets necessary to create ideas and programs that truly treat people as individuals with different backgrounds, tastes, ideas, or hot buttons.

Whatever attempts our industry makes at including different audiences is invariably a token effort, an afterthought to fill some perceived obligation. That’s why any ads that promote a company’s commitment to “diversity” always depict a carefully blended group of freshly scrubbed, differently hued people. For example, there are always some African-American people—just not ones that look “too black.” Other things are lacking in those “diversity” group shots: No midgets, no wheelchair-bound co-workers, no really fat chicks. Just a happy rainbow coalition—oh wait, no gays or lesbian couples either.

Advertising, far from taking any risks, is determined to stay as old-fashioned as possible. Of all the ads I’ve seen on TV that show a typical nuclear family—a mother, a father, and children—I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with a mixed race couple, adopted kids from a different ethnicity, or a father with a prosthetic leg.

It’s amazing how so much advertising seems so disconnected from the real world. Just like software programs such as Excel, Photoshop, or PowerPoint, our industry has default settings, the images clients are most comfortable with. In this business, white is the default setting, not black. Young is default, not old. Same goes for thin, straight, married, Christian…all preferable to whatever the alternatives are. Anything that deviates is different. And different makes people, particularly clients and agency executives, nervous and uncomfortable.

While we fret over how best to communicate with new generations and new media, we need to also concern ourselves with what we communicate—and how we attempt to portray those we’re communicating with. I don’t think there’s an easy answer. Real life simply is too imperfect, too messy, too disordered, and too unpredictable to accurately portray in advertising.

We can’t account for the nuances found in everyone’s lives. So we’re going to get more generalizations. More middle-of-the road. More work that tries to appeal to mass audiences with massive doses of mediocrity.

Sounds to me like Joe Sixpack isn’t just the target audience. He’s also the client.

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Prosthetics and Orthotics: Lower Limb and Spine List Price: $81.95 Sale Price: $64.74 You save: $17.21 (21%)   Eligible for free shipping! Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours See Reviews For This Product Description State Univ. of New York, Syracuse. Illustrated text features in-depth analysis of gait deviations, interventions, and implications for prosthetics and orthotics. Includes latest developments in materials and fabrications, scientific literature supporting evidence-based practice, terminology, and case studies. For students.

Molly the Pony: A True Story List Price: $15.95 Sale Price: $10.85 You save: $5.10 (32%)   Eligible for free shipping! Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours See Reviews For This Product Description Molly the pony waits. She waits in her stall. She waits during the storm. She waits for her owner to return.So begins the true story of a patient pony who is rescued from a south Louisiana barn after Hurricane Katrina and finds a new life on a farm with new animal friends. But Molly's tale of courage does not end here.When a dog on the farm attacks Molly, her front leg is badly injured. For a pony, a damaged leg is life threatening. To the amazement of veterinarians, though, Molly rises to her new challenge. She undergoes a rare surgery for horses: amputation of her front leg. Now fitted with a prosthetic limb, Molly relearns how to walk and embarks again on a new mission in life: making new people friends.This plucky pony's story of survival and friendship will win the hearts of readers young and old. All who have had to start over after displacement, abandonment, injury, or amputation will find a friend in Molly as they follow her story of bringing a smile to everyone she meets. Features ISBN13: 9780807133200 Condition: New Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

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