What is In a Message?

Business often tries to develop a message that will attract customers to the product they are trying to sell. Yet often times it seems to me that what most corporations seem to miss is that messaging goes far beyond just the general conventions of marketing and branding but must see it as an overall philosophy. Business must begin to understand there consumer – there needs, motivations and the patterns by which they live their lives. For the disability community this “niche market” has been an enigma for most businesses to truly get a handle on what the right type of message to send would be. Partly because it is a fairly fractured community with many different types of disability, however, I feel if we begin to really assess the issue we can come to a greater understanding of how to project certain messages that will attract the 56 million Americans with disabilities and be able to adapt it to other communities of those with disabilities globally.
To start off, American business must understand a basic truth that people with disabilities are people first! They want to live lives that are as productive, rewarding and fulfilling as everyone else. They have the same hopes, aspirations as any able bodied person. As I’ve said many times before disability is part of the human experience, it is an element that defines a person but in most cases is NOT the whole person. This is critical for business to understand when developing an overall strategy in developing a message that caters to not only the individual with a disability but family & friends. What is important to understand is that an individual’s disability impacts the people around them. If companies can begin with this premise they will start to understand how to frame the messaging to meet not only the individual with a disability but see the profound impact it can have on the market at large. To be continued…..