MTV Jersey Shore and Advertising

Unless you live in a cave, you have probably heard about the wildly popular MTV reality TV show Jersey Shore. It is about a group of single 20-something men and women who are of Italian ethnicity who are living together in a beach house on the Jersey Shore. This is the same format as the other MTV "Real World" reality TV shows.

The Jersey Shore reality TV show is extremely popular. However, there is also a strong backlash against it by the Italian community saying that the show wrongly depicts Italian American stereotypes and uses offensive words like "Guido" and "Guidettes." This has led to advertisers being concerned about advertising on the show and some stopping their advertising.

Here is my view on Jersey Shore. What we have are 20-something American men and women behaving like 20-something American men and women. It has nothing to do with them being Italian Americans. I do not care if you are Irish, German, French, African American, Italian, Asian, Swedish, Dutch, etc. Single 20-somethings like to have fun, party, and try to hook up with the opposite sex. Welcome to human sexuality 101.

As an advertiser, if you sell to the teen through 30-something demographic, then advertising on MTV's Jersey Shore makes perfect sense and you should not shy away from it. Again, the cast of this reality TV show act and behave like normal horny 20-somethings (just as the 20-something casts of all the MTV Real World shows behaved, and the fact that the Jersey Shore cast is Italian American has nothing to do with it. The majority of red-blooded 20-somethings in American behave like this.

So advertisers get off your high moral horse and wake up to the reality of how 20-somethings behave. We are no longer living in the age of Leave it to Beaver so stop pretending like we are. If the viewers of Jersey Shore are your demographic for buying your products, then advertise with confidence.

To your business success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing company
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-1638
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"