By Clarice Metzger
In January, Swedish retail company H&M released an online advertisement featuring a black boy modeling a hoodie reading “coolest monkey in the jungle.” Outrage from social media ensued, calling out the retailer for being culturally insensitive, tone deaf and stupid. Criticism and dropped endorsements from celebrities, journalists and social justice advocates alike led to an apology and removal of the ad.
“We understand that many people are upset about the image. We, who work at H&M, can only agree,” the retailer said in a statement to The Washington Post. “We are deeply sorry that the picture was taken and we also regret the actual print. Therefore, we have not only removed the image from our channels, but also the garment from our product offering globally.”
This is not the first company to find itself in hot water for racially insensitive advertising.
Following H&M’s insensitive ad, Italian Cosmetics Firm Wycon launched a collection of semi-permanent nail polishes with the darkest shade from the collection named Thick as A Nigga. Once again, a firestorm of critiques ensued on social media. Wycon did not issue an apology for using the racial slur as a branding tool, but the company removed all nail polish names and numbered the collection instead.
Last October, personal care brand Dove posted an ad on its Facebook page showing women from a variety of ethnicities changing their clothes to represent getting clean with Dove body wash. The ad depicted a black woman removing her shirt to reveal a white woman, seemingly equating becoming clean with becoming white.
The ad quickly drew criticism and the brand removed the ad from its Facebook page and also issued an apology. “An image we recently posted on Facebook missed the mark in representing women of color thoughtfully,” Dove tweeted. “We deeply regret the offense it caused.”
The list could go on. Noticing a pattern here?
With large companies continuously ‘missing the mark’ in their advertisements during a time of empowerment and progression through trending movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo and #TimesUp, the ad creation process and decision makers are continuously being examined.
“It all goes back to the process of how an ad is created,” said Gal Borenstein, CEO of Borenstein Group, a Washington D.C. based digital marketing agency.
“While no process is the exact same, before one puts out any message, three review gates must be passed. One, market research; two, the creative ideation process and three, the third party validation process.”
Market research includes statistics on the demographics, psychographics, also known as the study of people according to their attitudes and aspirations, and any other relevant information pertaining to the target audience of the advertisement. This process is about understanding the audience in order for the product advertised to be targeted at the specific groups correctly.
The creative ideation process occurs when the people creating the actual advertisement throw ideas together about what the advertisement will look like and the feelings it should evoke. This ‘gate’ as Borenstein described, is where the idea is developed and made sure it is comprehensive. Once the top three ideas emerge from the creative ideation stage, it’s time for the third party validation.
“This can include focus groups, online testing or any way that is showing the ads to a group of people who match the demographics of the people looking to be reached,” explained Borenstein. “The difference between now and five years ago with social media is that everything is in real time so the cycle of time is repressed,” he continued. “It’s very dangerous and irresponsible to say we’re doing this because we love it and skipping over that third party validation. Failure to do the third party validation results in 90 percent or more disconnect with the community.”
A closer look at the demographic of people actually working in the advertising industry further explains the disconnect and danger of skipping over the third party validation. The AdColor Partnership Guide notes: “Racial disparity is 38 percent worse in the advertising industry than in the overall U.S. labor market.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the 559,000 Americans employed in the advertising, public relations and related services industry in 2017, less than half are women, 5.8 percent are black or African-American, 7.4 percent are Asian and 8.9 percent are Hispanic or Latino.
The lack of diversity in the industry makes responsible content that much more difficult to achieve.
“Big ad campaigns are often designed by only a small group of people—and those people are often homogeneous, which means they think alike, have similar cultural backgrounds, and tend to miss the incendiary elements within their campaigns,” said Adam Alter, associate professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business and New York Times bestselling author of two books, “Irresistible” and “Drunk Tank Pink.”
“Sometimes within certain companies, they don’t use outside agencies and they only work with in house talent. That can from time to time create an echo chamber and if they’re within their own bubble, that can be an issue. They’re not hearing anything from the outside,” said Dan Sweet, Director of Public Relations at marketing firm, RP3 Agency.
“I tell my students to show any ideas they have to four or five people who are different from them—of a different gender, race, ethnicity, religion, age, socioeconomic background, and so on—before they release anything publicly,” Alter said. “These companies often fail to market test their ideas, and, though it’s hard to believe, offensive ideas sometimes see the light of day.”
The result of these offensive ideas that see the light of day and are shared widely via social media? The perpetuation of negative stereotypes and ideologies which ultimately results in taking steps backward for supposed progressive times.
Earlier in 2017, Pepsi released an ad borrowing imagery from the Black Lives Matter marches.
The video ad featured white model Kendall Jenner leading a protest, approaching a line of police officers and giving a can of Pepsi to a police officer as a sign of peace ultimately trivializing the Black Lives Matter movement while mocking police and community relations. Yet again, the company apologized and pulled the insensitive ad. “Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize,” the official statement read. “We did not intend to make light of any serious issue.”
“When the unpopular becomes popular we run the risk of big brands appropriating our message to sell products,” said Makia Green, Outreach Lead for Black Lives Matter DC.
“It does three things: One, white-washes our messaging and imagery, that originally is to protect black people. Two, people often think that BLM is behind the production of these advertisements, that we have been co-opted and are no longer holding to our values. Three, it allows these companies and other groups that have not stood for black lives to profit off the labor of black people,” she said.
She continued, “they begin to own part of the narrative and teach the non-black public that they too can own a piece of our culture in smaller arenas. These appropriative movements and ads end up getting more popular than our original work and it is harder for Black folks to use it to raise awareness to our issues and injustices.”
The effects of these insensitive images resonate with audiences before they even realize it and can normalize values or behaviors.
“The ‘images, dreams, and emotions…that we are evolutionary programmed to engage with’ are pasted together in a fashion that toys with our minds. This means that we are often times affected in ways that we do not even realize or even understand,” said Golide Hayko in her review, “Effects of Advertising on Society: A Literary Review,” a study examining the impact of advertising and brand awareness.
“When an audience views an advertisement they are not actively trying to get anything out of it, so it is not very influential at that moment. However, long after the viewing experience has been forgotten ‘the effects will show up.’ Many advertisement critics believe that society can be sent messages that we do not even know that we are receiving.”
Whether intentional or not, these insensitive ads can cause and perpetuate discriminatory practices and values that people have worked so hard to overcome and dispel.
“Brands can do better by incorporating empathy advertising and being more realistic and honest with listeners,” said Johnny De Jesus, project manager at Washington, D.C. based marketing agency, Yamanair Creative. “It is never a goal for any company to be in bad lighting and all it takes is more critical thinking from the advertising decision makers.”
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