A Brief History of Ads Targeting African Americans
Slate has posted a slideshow documenting ads since the 1970s, when corporations starting heavily targeting African-American consumers. Check it out.
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Comments:
I am so sick of political correctness I could scream.
I have a minor in HR and one of my professors in college corrected me one day when I used the word black in conjunction with people. He told me I had to say African Americans. I told him that as long as none of my friends were offended by it I would use what we were comfortable with. And if we lived in Great Britain what would we call black people?
I don't care for slurs at all, but as far as I can tell black is acceptable.
About the ads? It was a different time. There have been so many atrocities committed throughout time on the basis of race, how do you begin to complain about this one? I think this is an interesting lesson in history. Now we know it's a little too, "Separate but equal."
Doesn't seem to work on Firefox but works on Safari and IE.
I can't get past the first image in Firefox, I'll try it in Safari as someone else suggested.
As for that first image, does one person of color with three persons of pallor really qualify as "heavily targeting African-American consumers"? You could just as easily argue that it targeted whites who wanted to be inclusive, or (shocking, I know) just people generally.
Interesting how I struggled to pick out the stereotypes in the text. I simply don't see a lot of that as african-american slang. I can dig a good time and I can get down with it. I mainly see that stuff as the 70s trying to be cool but failing oh so badly.
Who cares if marketers used slang to market products to a specific ethnic group? Isn't that ALWAYS what they do? I mean come on, you can't turn on the TV or Radio without someone talking about a 'soccer mom,' or whatever else. Marketing is built on the concept of stereotyping and creating demand based on perceptions of 'cool.' Apple understands this best: why do you think all their adds feature uber-cool Indy artists? To sell to affluent kids and their parents, of course.
The last image, and the website it leads to, is a little disconcerting (as I'm sure was the authors' intention).
"Deepy rooted in the community!"(registered trademark). Hmmmm.
Seems to me Mcdonald's is always trying to market to the inner city ghetto with Blacks in their ads. "I'm lovin' it!"
"This Kotex ad is rare, in that while featuring an African-American model, there's no slang or allusion in the copy that otherwise distinguishes it as targeted advertising ..."
I thought the target audience for Kotex was women in general?? This slideshow sort of seems to be stretching in saying that every ad featuring blacks either featured slang or was weird for NOT featuring slang. Honestly, most of that just seemed like how people talked in the 70s.
So... advertisers put together ads that were meant to appeal to a specific demographic... isn't that what advertisers are supposed to do? I'm confused about why the ads depicted in the slideshow are bad...
@GuinevereRucker:
I'm really glad to know I'm not the only one that finds the African-American designation annoying & inaccurately/unnecessarily descriptive. I thought I was just being petty or sensitive. I'm Black dammit!… And I wasn't born in Africa. I work with people from Africa that are now American citizens that are confused by the designation of African American for those that aren't actually from Africa. Even worse, IMO, is Afro American. WTF does that mean?
"If I'm white and born in Africa, you don't call me "African-American" when referring to my race. You call me WHITE."
Well, you weren't born in Africa.
Maybe you'd want to be called African. Or African-American. Or White. Or Jewish. Or Muslim.
I'd call you whatever you wanted to be called.
It's as simple as that. If people want to be called African-American, then I'm happy to do that.
If I called you "sweetie" and it bothered you, should I be offended... that you're offended? No. Everyone is different and we should try to be sensitive.
It's as simple as that.
This was interesting but not very educational. There are far more concerning things in racially targeted advertising than slang choices. The van of a million kids came closest to some of the more offensive things I've seen.
baristabrawl-- I agree. I am mixed race, American Indian, white, and black. But because my skin is brown(clear and beautiful), I of course, am more identified as black (African-American, lol). When I was real skinny, I was often mistaken for someone from India or some island.
I relate to what you are saying. I don't have a problem with people calling me black or African-American. And you are right...what to call people so "their feelings are not hurt." That is where the
sensitivity comes from. The many years of MISS USE of words....
I like your statement:"And if we lived in Great Britain what would we call black people?" I lived in ARUBA for a year. There they distinguish people by WHERE (usually a neighboring Island or South America) they come from. People in Aruba thought I was from there. You are correct ONLY in America do we try to associate ALL "blacks" (that being people with brown or dark brown skin) people as being from AFRICA.
Island people are all mixed up as well....And they don't like it if you call them black.
The HISTORY of the words is the reason for the PC thing.
Take care and don't sweat it....unless you are at school or work....lol
@GuinevereRucker: I almost always agree, but in the case of specifically referring to black Americans (excluding black people outside of the US) I think it applies. Well, almost.
Of course, very few black Americans are actually from, or have ever even been to Africa. I think the term "black Americans" is not only more accurate, its far less irritating.
@twophrasebark: Agreed. I don't see what people think they're defending by insisting that it's more important that they use the term they first learned than the term somebody prefers. And even if some people prefer different terms, it's not the end of the world, you know?
I doubt that people who object to "African American" for being insufficiently precise would actually leap to get behind "Sub-Saharan African American."
When I was a kid in the 70s, blacks were absent from most programming or advertising unless it was geared toward them, and very narrow in its presentation of what black people were really like (apparently they owned junkyards, lived in ghettos, drank Colt 45 and only listened to either jazz music or that mysterious stuff on Soul Train...).
It's not so much that the example ads are "bad," so much as just "awkward" as hell. There wasn't much in the media about blacks that wasn't weirdly stereotyped like Jimmy Walker and Good Times. As for the lingo they're attempting to use, it wasn't in everybody's vernacular like it is today.
Also, IMO, African-American is a media contrivance. Black people I know just say "black."
@MauriceCallidice: Yeah, I think that one is more just period art to introduce the subject than a real example--they don't put commentary on it, either.
However, there's still a pretty notable era shift in the 1960s and 1970s with even that kind of inclusion, so it's still pretty historically relevant. The targeted ads are kind of a double-edged sword, in that they are at least in some ways preferable to the prior invisibility.
@40-40-5: Yeah, it's basically a contest costumed as community support. That whole instance was particularly interesting to me, in that 1) it's current and 2) I hadn't heard of it. It looks like it exists solely in Ohio and Pennsylvania at the moment. I wonder how they're positioning it now that McDonald's is doing the neo-Starbucks stuff?
@GuinevereRucker: "Taxachusetts" I really wish people would use "cute" nicknames like that at the beginning of their rants o I can just skip them.
Speaking of targeted advertising, a few months back we got some radio ads in metro detroit, on stations _not_ primarily playing 'urban' (hiphop) music, for parental DNA testing. The narrator had an obvious black accent and the music behind it was generic hip hop.
Wow, that doesn't send a message.
@twophrasebark: "I'd call you whatever you wanted to be called."
Call me King.
My Lord, Sire, or His Awesomeness The Great work as well.
@dakotad555: Err, no, it wasn't what they always did. If you wouldn't fit on the set of Father Knows Best, you were invisible as far as print and broadcast media and that's much of the point of the Slate article. Or worse, negative stereotypes ruled.
Only through a great deal of "whining" did things change.
Although, it's great now that it's so accepted that some thing it's always been this way, isn't it?
@kajillion: Although, it goes to show that some stereotypes are uncannily accurate, huh?
"Taxachusetts", "Fascist socialists" & "You kids, get off my lawn!": the holy trinity.
@GuinevereRucker: Well, political correctness is usually just a term for showing consideration for others.
Black is a considerably less accurate description of race than 'African American' is. Race is a nuanced social construct, so yes, it's difficult to describe it in concrete terms. But if you're going to be talking about someone else's culture, you should use the term that person prefers.
And your hypotheticals are kind of hollow.
My sister in law is a very pale-skinned Algerian, and she doesn't like being called white. She calls herself African, and if she were an American citizen, she might refer to herself as an African-American. I don't know. I know that she does consider herself a 'person of color' because of her heritage and her culture, and if someone has some compelling reason to talk about her in those terms, I don't see what's so inconvenient about using the language she uses herself.
@GuinevereRucker: As a white person, you do not get to decide how "black people," "African-Americans," "persons of color," etc.. choose to call themselves.
Oh, and I also live in Massachusetts. Reports of our political correctness are greatly exaggerated and are wholly unrelated to our taxation rates.
@Mackinstyle: Yeah, it's not working in Firefox or Opera for me, and I'm not quite interested enough to try to figure out why.
@baristabrawl: I once saw a news story that was referring to a man born in Africa, still living in Africa, having never lived anywhere else, as "African-American" because his race was tangentially relevant to the story ... and he was black.
It cracked me up. Either some reporter was over-programmed and the copy editor was asleep, or some copy editor was over-programmed. :)
It's funny how several of the period Black ads could also be places as reaching the gay market, circa '70s.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): The over-programming does get funny. In literary criticism and reviewing, you'll run into Americans describing a black Briton as "African-American." It strikes me as very American that what we have the hardest time remembering is that not everybody's American :-).
@cifdtruckie: because it hinges on the idea that all black people talk in slang, that they're all working class and that they all live in apartment complexes. they're portrayed as being part of a separate or sub-group of americans--the "other."--non-homeowners, poor english speakers, uneducated and not able to work as an executive or other type of professional.
@dakotad555: the problem with this is that blacks (and other targeted groups in advertising) are only being perceived and reflected in one very narrow, stereotypical way--in this case, their "blackness." they're only viewed in how they speak, dress, wear their hair, etc. i'd say blacks (and people in general) are a lot more than just what they wear or how they pronounce things. they're being summed up as a race in a very nice, neat box with clear boundaries.
@veg-o-matic: Fine, but could the correct word stay the same instead of changing every few years? I honestly have no idea what is offensive or not anymore.
@GuinevereRucker: I've always wonder if you refer to someone as being "African-American" and it turns out they are a citizen of England, would that be offensive that you did't get the persons nationality correct? Why does American have to be in any race description?
@GuinevereRucker: My mother was born in Africa. My father was born in the US. I like being called an African American.
What is so hard about calling me what I want to be called?
@baristabrawl: Black British or Britons. It's not rocket science.
Black is a racial term. African-American is an ethnicity.
@GuinevereRucker: My neighbor is African, not African-American. He's a Kenyan attached to that country's embassy. He wouldn't know what an African American is. Same with our employee base in the UK. The people of African descent or Caribbean descent resent having an American tag added to their names. I'll call someone whatever he/she wants to be called. Usually, it's just their name without a category attached.
Anyone notice that all McDonalds commercials star only blacks or Hispanics and either have hip-hop, R&B, or salsa beds playing in the background? Do white people not eat at McDonalds?
@outlulz: Could be specific to your area. Around here, I'm seeing mostly the "come on in, upscalers!" ads for the new coffee products.
@xay: How does one know what someone wants to be called?
I doubt if I knew you I'd refer to you as xay, my African American friend. You'd be xay and I'd guess you'd probably rather be called by your name than African American.
Terms like African American are used to refer to people or groups of people one generally doens't know personally, therefore it seems unlikely their personal preferences for what to be called would be known.
Bleh, I hate that PC word. If I'm white and born in Africa, you don't call me "African-American" when referring to my race. You call me WHITE.
Even black people call themselves black, and I've never heard a black person say that the term "black" was offensive. "African-American" is just annoying - we don't call white people "Caucasian-American" or "European-American" unless we're being silly.
Disclaimer: I live in the heart of Taxachusetts - the stupid, politically correct state where almost anything offends someone. I get sick of it :)
/rant