The AIA and Public Outreach

The AIA is now running its most ambitious ever public communications and outreach campaign. It began with videos posted on social media in early 2015, followed by paid advertisements on broadcast television. To see the spots: YouTube.com/user/AIANational

If you believe—as I do—that a main purpose of the AIA is to stimulate broadly-based demand for our work, you might agree that the main purpose of a public outreach campaign must be to reach clients, potential clients, and others who are in a position to have direct influence on decisions about building.

But architects practice at so many different scales, in so many different places, in so many different contexts, with so many different market concentrations; it’s difficult to pinpoint an exact “target audience,” simply because there are so many of them.

Thus far, the AIA approach has been to portray architecture as an inspired—and inspiring—calling, which it surely is. But don’t we also need to pinpoint and appeal to specific markets? I would very much like to hear from colleagues about the kinds of messages we need to convey for specific groups.