I was watching a Youtuber named Yellowflash and he was talking about how Superman and Lois has better ratings than Batwoman and Supergirl despite that fact that Superman and Lois has never trended on Twitter and the other two shows have. He was making the point that twitter popularity doesn't equal actual popularity.
It made me wonder if there is a business term for what you see corporations doing by catering to mythical audiences like gaming or comic book companies who think that it is ok to insult their male (especially white males) fanbase because there is some magical group of female gamers that will make them money?
I guess another thing would be the whole "male gaze" thing. Feminists seem so upset by the fact that men like seeing an attractive woman. I mean it is no secret that an attractive male or female lead is an easy way to get at least a little interest from the opposite sex.
But is there an official term from what you see companies do by putting way too much stock in what is trending online?
Since people answered the last question so diligently, I'll answer the one asked in the middle: A business term for the magical outer market being pursued.
It's called, depending on the situation, either Overreach or Changing the Target Market. Overreach would be, in an obvious and clear example, let's say Fleshlight saw that women were not buying their pocket puss for some reason (I wonder why?) and so thought they needed to dedicate resources in order to tap that market. New ad campaign, buy off influencers! Same product, new area to sell to! For some reason sales aren't skyrocketing... There IS no market out there, they're just wasting resources reaching for one that doesn't exist, market overreach.
Changing the Target Market instead is actively giving up your existing market in order to seek a new one, or at the very least, sacrificing some resources for the existing market to court the new one. A successful example of this would be My Little Pony changing its market to include the Bronies, changing the show and even the toys to better appeal to that slightly more male and slightly older audience. A hypothetical unsuccessful example would be a steakhouse embracing veganism and removing beef from their menu for PETA reasons because veganism is "in".
Comic book and video game companies think they're doing Overreach, seeking out an Intersectionalist Feminist audience while retaining their own, but are really Changing Their Target Market: They're not just adding more marketing, they're changing the product itself, to make it appeal less to one group, and in theory more to another.
Thanks! That is a great breakdown.