Diversity in Advertising

This week in advertising has taught me that even though we are slowly moving toward a more diversely represented society, we still have a very long way to go.  Here are some of the advertisements I've encountered this week.

1. While watching an episode of a show online, the sponsor was T-Mobile.  The commercial that played at every break was the T-Mobil my favs and unlimited texting.  The family in the commercial was white.  Also at the end of the commercial when it shows each family member and their favs, all of their friends were white as well.  It seems that even if you didn't use a diverse or non-white family, you should at least include diversity in the favs.

2. While watching TV this week, a Cox commercial aired advertising its high speed internet.  It clipped to average people 4 times.  Of those 4 times only 2 were white people, the other two were an Asian woman and a Black mother with her daughter.  Not only were there more than just white people but the clips of white people were the last two clips of people shown.  I thought it was interesting and forward thinking that Cox showed the racially diverse people first.

3.  I picked up the campus newspaper this week and this particular day, there was an insert for Intersession classes.  The insert was structured so that one student was in the forefront and there were a handful in the background.  The student in the foreground was white and the students in the background were white with one person that had a skin color just slightly darker than white.  Now this one surprised me.  I would think on a college campus that attempts to be diverse this would be displayed in some of it's advertising.  Unfortunately I was sorely mistaken. 

4.  While watching TV I noticed several Cover Girl commercials.  In the handful I saw I noticed a couple of things.  The commercials that have everyday women (non-celebrity spokeswomen) there was a wide racial gamut.  This is definitely an advertising strategy to target all women, not just white women.  Also I noticed that their celebrity spokeswomen are starting to be more diverse as well.  Not only do they have white celebrities but women like Rihanna and Queen Latifah and even Ellen (not racially diverse but lifestyle diversity) show that some companies are starting to get it.

5.  Again while watching an online TV episode one of the commercials was for the NCAA basketball tournament.  This commercial I have actually seen on TV as well as online.  The commercial starts with a man in a cubical being confronted by his coworkers about supposedly watching inappropriate video online (when he is really watching NCAA basketball).  The man and the people standing around him are all white, the only diversity in the commercial is one Black woman that gets shown for a second and a Middle Eastern man that is just barely shown at the end of the commercial.  This commercial really shocks me because collegiate basketball is fairly racially diverse (granted it's mostly white and black) but to have very little representation of that in the commercial was interesting.

6. Another TV commercial...this one for Safe Auto.  This commercial I've seen before but it occurred to me this week that I'm not sure how to take it.  The commercial is a Black woman putting gas in her car talking about how it's great to have a cheap/affordable way to get the state minimum coverage.  In my mind, this can be taken one of two ways.  One, Safe Auto didn't want to use another white person in their commercial and cater to a larger audience.  Two, because it's a cheap way to get auto insurance and more racial minorities have lower income than white people.  I honestly don't know how to take it...maybe I'm just over thinking it and there isn't an underlying meaning.

7. Another commercial I've seen this week (I've also seen banners online at different Web sites) is the Dove body care commercials.  Dove, in my opinion, has done a pretty good job of incorporating racial diversity in their ad campaigns.  The body care commercials have many different races represented and they are not typically staggered to place one in the background over the others.  I think, similar to the strategy of Cover Girl, Dove is targeting all women, not just white women.

8. Yet another commercial (I promise I really don't watch excessive TV) was for Verizon.  The commercial is a couple who are across the world from each other (both white).  They are the only two people in the commercial.

9. Sorry...another commercial.  But this time it's Target.  Target has 3 new lines of make up and all have different selling points.  In the commercial all make up creators talk about their lines and none of the models they use are of racial minority groups...all are white.

10.  Of the commercials listed at the bottom of the assignment, I watched the Nike commercial.  The racial diversity was alive and well in this commercial, most likely because Nike targets/gets business from all different races.

Over all, it seems to me that the advertising that has more diversity are the one's selling products to women (particularly beauty products).  I think part of this may be contributed to things like Dove's campaign of making girls comfortable in their own beauty instead of molding to societies impression of beauty.  This means that when it comes to Dove and Cover Girl, they are on the right track (and fighting an uphill battle) in showing there is more than just white beauty.

I also think, as the illustration at the top of the page suggests, the people creating advertising are not racially diverse (and they need to be) so they don't consciously incorporate people who may not look like them.

This Dove commercial has an Asian woman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=til0M5NhFKo&feature=related

Cover Girl commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP8XU7ZLS5o