“Black History Month” is right around the corner and the Superbowl is only days away. Laws, media & society has helped make racism less of an issue. As you can imagine, this blog isn’t about the equality of African-Americans in general rather how the marketing world incorporates Blacks, or doesn’t.
The biggest marketing day of the year is coming up, SuperBowl. In fact, many people watch this event just to see the commercials. You would think that the world’s most popular sport, with African-Americans making up 67% (according to the University of Central Florida’s 2006 Racial and Gender Report Card: National Football League), played during “Black History Month”, with the worlds largest television audience that you would see a gleaming example of equal opportunity for African-American actors and models right?
Breaking down these barriers may have a long way to go. Having reviewed all commercials played during the 2007 SuperBowl it may look like a success at first glance, with 42 of the 75 commercials having a Black actor in it. That’s not quite a full picture though. Of those 42, 12 play a secondary role. In fact, another 14 play such a minor role that you have to be looking to even see them. I call that a “background” role. That leaves 16 commercials, or 21% with African-Americans getting the lead role. Certainly not terrible considering the Black population makes up roughly 12.5% of the U.S. population (2004 Census Bureau).
Let’s be truthful here, corporations are afraid to include anything other than an attractive white actor(actress) to promote their product. Take a closer look at those 16 commercials. Two were commercials for movies with African-American leads and 6 commercials were based purely on athletes that are Black. Companies looking to create a commercial that searched into the acting talent pool to promote their product during a sport dominated by African-American athletes and played in Black History Month found a Black actor only 8 times. That’s exactly the same amount of commercials that used animals. Yes, like gorilla’s and lions, those kind of animals.
Having worked in the marketing field for a while I’ve seen that the problem is even worse in typical advertising. There are a few exceptions but corporations, for the most part, stick to what they believe will work. White and gorgeous. They shouldn’t get all the blame though because marketers market what works. If you want to help give an equal opportunity then buy products from companies that take the chance of showing diversity. Support their decisions and they will take notice. Marketing with diversity has made progress but it still has a long ways to go.
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Cougar Lew · January 29, 2008 at 8:46 pm
If I get your point, diversity in marketing/advertising, there is a fair amount of just that. It makes sense that since there is a tremendous diversity of products being marketed, reasonably sensible campaigns would have to be diverse. Seems to me that if a campaign isn’t targeted appropriately, it won’t prove to be very effective. The commercials played during the Super Bowl last year weren’t targeting the NFL, they targeted diverse markets with a variety of product pitches. The racial diversity probably matches the audience being targeted by advertisers.
As for “white and gorgeous” being the mantra of blindly droned by corporations, the first thing that came to mind is the recent campaign of Apple comparing the Mac, a laid-back unshaven casually dressed young white male, to the PC, an overweight bespectacled polyester suited buffoon. Lovable buffoon, but portrayed as someone out of step with current technology. In my opinion, neither white male is all that good looking. There are plenty of examples to support either position.
Marketing by it’s very nature should be diverse. It should be creative. Reasoned minds will agree with you that rejecting people because of race, religion or sexual preference is abhorrent. I would suggest that the majority of marketing and corporate executives are reasoned minds. They also are focused on selling their products.
Uht Oh… The halftime show for this year’s Super Bowl is an old white guy, Tom Petty. Thank goodness he isn’t very good looking!
Chris G · February 12, 2008 at 6:10 pm
For me, when it comes to diversity, diversity of thought is more important than the diversity of skin color.
Ideas are what is important. For example; If the concept sucks, doesn’t matter who got the role.