In the U.S., political correctness has a strong influence on public statements indicating or implying that ethnicity or gender even as a general trend lead to some difference in a given group. Some exceptions are made for positive qualities that many women may like, such as being more naturally gifted for empathy, nurturance and multi-tasking. Otherwise, if you make any generalizations about a non-white group, look out. And if the group in question happens to be black, then it's big time look out, particularly since the history of race relations in the U.S. in terms of blacks (e.g.: slavery) has driven a lot of this intense concern.
And from what I understand, there is no substantial credible biological basis for believing in racial differences. Seems we really are one 'real' race, the human race.
Now, all that said, in the real world United States, where marketing is largely about generating profits & market share without regard for political or social equity sensibilities, there are at times fairly pronounced differences between various groups. I suspect that average individual and household income, likelihood of participation in water sports in general & diving in particular, probability of living in a metropolitan vs. a rural area & a number of other variables will correlate to some degree with ethnicity.
A person designing a marketing study of the U.S. would find knowing the percentages by gender & ethnicity of the target sample to be at least interesting.
This gets a lot more difficult when you expand the question to include nationality, though. Who is more similar/dissimilar; a U.S. white man, a U.S. black woman and a British white man?
That said, just as RJP showed with gender percentage comparisons of the SB survey respondents vs. Dema's figures, if there is a large discrepancy in ethnic (or national) makeup between SB members vs. Dema's figures, then you've got a somewhat different sample set. How different, & the practical significance of it, remains to be determined, but at least the marketer knows to consider it.
Of course, it's fairly likely survey respondents here aren't fully representative of Scuba Board membership as a whole. Those of us who spend a lot of time here and pay attention to some of RJP's thread discussions are more likely to post than someone who just posted in the Welcome section that he just got certified.
One question arises from all this; even if you determine SB to be a good testing ground for marketing ideas in the scuba industry, is the target demographic to be a marketing drive in the U.S., or world wide? Just as with the Quaker Oaks campaign the target demographic was working mothers, not family man fathers or kids; they focused on who decides what to buy.
Which raises the next question. Does SB need to be representative of all divers, or just some subset more likely to make gear & trip purchasing decisions (e.g.: instructors, LDS owners, etc…
?
Richard.
