Everything to Everyone

There’s a dentist here in San Francisco who everyone knows – but I had yet to meet someone who actually called him their dentist until today. This dentist is widely known for his terrible television and radio ads, his phony smile at the end of every commercial, and the fact that his office will “take better care of you, seven days a week.”

At the end of some of the derivatives of the ad that’s run almost as long as I’ve lived in San Francisco (20+ years!), several different members of the staff are shown on screen as they individually proclaim in many different languages that their office is multi-lingual. A few of the people seem to actually be fluent in the language in which they speak the line – but somewhat disturbingly, most of them seem as though they are speaking it for the first time. The worst offense is spoken by the dentist himself when he states “see hawbluh ess-pan yole.”

My thought when I see this obviously deliberate pandering to every possible audience is, “what would I think if my language were one of those butchered by members of the dentist’s staff?” Would I be thrilled to have finally found a dental office that spoke my language? Or would I be offended by the obvious attempt at snagging my business while butchering my native tongue at the same time? More likely is the latter. But that’s just my opinion.

Looking around, it’s clear that the good dentist isn’t alone. Many businesses attempt the same strategy: to be everything to everyone. I find it obnoxious, but it’s possible that others don’t. Of course, I’m always wondering if there was any research conducted that lead the organization to believe that sort of approach would work. Anecdotally, it would appear that smaller organizations fall victim to the shotgun approach more frequently than larger organizations – perhaps that’s because larger organizations are more likely to have research in their culture, and, in general, smaller organizations are frequently more concerned with just making payroll.

Fortunately, we’re seeing a shift, minor as it may be for now. As research becomes more affordable through web technologies and other developments, small and medium businesses have more access than ever to the opinions of their customers and prospects. Maybe research will become a bigger part of the DNA of smaller organizations in the near future? We certainly hope so – and maybe we’ll even see some changes in advertisements for dentistry.