30May04

the digital photograph printed onto a white 8 1/2″ by 11″ printer paper, held in the hands of my coworker showed a man in front of a nondescript standard photographers studio blue background, like in elementary school.

this man, most likely in his late 30’s or early 40’s but his countenance lacking in wisdom gained by age and experience. his crooked beat up military style fatigue-camo hat, sitting slightly askew on his mousy brown curly hair, underneath, his face, blackened from years of hard, nonglamorous job. clean, but dark and blackened as if you couldn’t wash away the dirt, permenently stained like coal miners, the dirt forever wedged in under his fingernails, giving away his status.

he looked like a character out of king of the hill: hat wearin’, rifle totin’, beer drinkin’, wife beater wearin’.. what our society’s stereotype of a “hick” or “white trash” from the deep south. the cousin or the uncle to trailer trash barbie.

his awkward smile revealing missing and blackened teeth, in his hands balancing between an open suitcase filled with bundles of cash, fake like the ones in the glossy hollywood movies about a kidnapping. in his other hand, latex cheesy balloons and a gift bag. a sign on the open suitcase, “thank you for playing the oregon lottery.”

above this printed image, written afterwards by hand: TARGET AUDIENCE.

for the past week, a local ad agency have been in the studios working on a new campaign for the oregon lottery. and this was their target market. the poor, the less educated, the lower class, the trailer park residences of prineville or some other no named one signal light town.

statistically, the demographics of lottery players and winners are the lower class, the black and hispanic minorities with less education and lower incomes. these are the people who play the lottery religiously, purchase tickets week after week, and the ones who drives 20 minutes to the store to get nothing else, but the ticket. these are the people that subscribe to the believe, “if you don’t play, you can’t win.”

in the early 90’s in detroit, when a new lottery game was first implimented, it was only available in grocery stores and convenience stores in the poor neighborhoods.

strictly from a business stand point, marketing specifically to this group of people is smart. strategic. but where is our moral and ethical obligations to not exploit the poor in our society? and what does that look like?

the number one reason for justification is that lottery money is poured back into the community, funding programs and services, education and other benefits, but it is from taking from the pockets of the poor. exploited and playing on their desire for a better life, better situation, escape from the ordinary but more than that, as escape from their present living conditions.

eric commented that, “this picture is so classic! you can’t cast anyone more perfect than this even if you wanted to!”

but that’s exactly it. the truth or the reality of it is more daunting, more in your face, and fiction is not able to recreate that. and when specifically the agencies and the oregon lottery fingers out this previous winner as the target audience, it’s a little sickening. and a little sad and distressing to see where we are as people.

where is our role in all of this?

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