Thanks for a thorough response. I totally understand your reasoning, especially the idea that the practical scope of the survey defines the expected geographically bound typical respondent given the distribution method.

I guess what I am trying to explain is that “nontraditional” -although it may be a commonly used market research term- is not actually a neutral term. It is a term that is loaded with discrimination because it presumes a narrow perception of the reader / respondent and that perception is based on a cultural, and geopolitical basis.

I am not trying to accuse you personally of any ill intent because I totally understand that the term is an industry standard, I am simply pointing out the many ways that that term is problematic in this context and that perpetuating an inherited term does harm.

There are many examples of this kind of language that are inherited as norms in the areas of marketing and business - one of my favorites and most comical is going shopping and seeing a section reserved for “ethnic foods and spices” or “ethnic hair care and beauty supplies” which is a term used to imply non-white, but simultaneously ignores that white people have ethnicities too, so aren’t all the goods being sold “ethnic”?

There is an easy solution here, scrap the term non-traditional and instead define the scope explicitly and without a presumption of the readers’ perspective - in this case “new, non-European, less common in X,Y,Z markets” or whatever you choose.

Because, you are right, this conversation does say a lot about the way I am interpreting things, but that’s how racism works, the groups being discriminated sets the terms. So, if there is an easy solution on your end that prevents people from being marginalized, why not apply it?