Last Friday night, Bruce Jenner shocked us all with a powerful and very personal story about his struggles with gender and his recent decision to become a transgender woman. During a special edition of ABC’s 20/20, Diane Sawyer interviewed Bruce Jenner 1976 Olympic Gold medalist, or to a much younger demo, the father of the Kardashian clan. Now, he has become an emblem to the transgender community.
I felt compelled to discuss this interview because of the multitude of issues at play. One, his story touched me deeply. Someone who could train, perform and conquer at the highest levels of athletic achievement, yet be so afraid of who they really are…is absolutely heart-breaking. Two, I think this interview will go down in television history. It becomes an important timestamp for the transgender movement of education, acceptance and equality. It also broke TV ratings records capturing the attention of 16.9M viewers on a Friday night, the ratings graveyard. Third, this broadcast is a shining example of this new brand of consumerism, I’m calling social consumerism, that has recently taken hold of the media landscape.
Building Transgender Awareness
The Transgender community suffers from a lack of awareness, education and empathy. This interview became a national platform to talk, in great detail, about what it means to be transgender and how the people you love most are affected. The most valuable service this interview provided was an opportunity to show America how human his struggle, how sympathetic his story and how hopeful his future can be, now that it’s all out in the open. From Miley Cyrus to Orange Is The New Black‘s Laverne Cox to the regular folks, like you and I tweeted messages of support and hope for a more accepting future.
Now Here Comes The $$
Despite its earnestness, you better believe this was a huge power move by ABC. May sweeps started last Thursday and ABC annihilated the competition on Thursday night with that jaw-dropping episode of Grey’s Anatomy and Friday night with this interview. The Sweeps period, for the non-TV nerds, has historically been the most important time to drive strong ratings for broadcasters. It’s the time when Nielsen surveys, via Paper Diaries, (yes, I said paper diaries), and the network winners bask in a halo of ratings and strong press. That buzz and those ratings headlines trickle down into Ad Sales presentations and Upfronts, which loosely correlate to more advertising dollars.
The Bruce Jenner interview was intentionally programmed in this time slot and his story was intentionally chosen. He is, in spite of himself, a key figure in the Kardashian mediastorm – one that commands viewership and social conversation. ABC was not the only entity capitalizing on this interview. E! also ran a spot during the interview announcing their latest show that will document Bruce’s life as a transgender woman. This social consumerism can be seen here and seen in the many examples I shared last week – Cacique’s “I’m No Angel,” Anna Kendrick’s #BossPitch and other “Fem-vertising” campaigns.
Check out last week’s post for the latest on the Fem-vertsing campaigns –> Do Women Rule Social Media?
Are these stars and brands leveraging their platform to shed light on important issues? Or, are they sensationalizing these issues to make money? Call me an optimist (or just a business student), but I believe in the honesty of these platforms and these campaigns. I also see nothing wrong in positive yet provocative images increasing sales for advertisers willing to make bold choices.
But, where do we draw the line and when do these tactics become trite and exploitative?
