Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Causing trouble south of the border

Here we are up here, trying to make a good impression on the world, and what happens?

These ads:




Oh, Jesus. (And I don't mean "hey-seus".)

I mean, I get the joke. The wrestler one is kind of cute. But up here in Canada, we are so removed from Mexico as anything but a tourist destination and source of tequila that it's easy to see parodies of Mexican culture as harmless fun.

But, down south of our border, where racism against Mexican-Americans is a constant issue, our neighbours in the industry found it a little less amusing.

"BBDO Toronto sez "Real Mexicans" are lazy and dirty, or wrestlers."

- Copyranter


"Canadians Think Real Mexicans Are Lazy and Dirty"

- Adrants


Ouch. One of my colleagues at Acart is from Mexico. So, on behalf of the Canadian ad industry, I'd like to say... sorry, eh?

2 comments:

  1. Hey Tom, I agree with you.
    I think this is bad advertising based on an old-school model of stereotyping. In this case it only shows a complete lack of knowledge and culture from the people who came up with the creative. It just makes me think that the client and the food of course are not REAL Mexican at all, if so they wouldn't have agreed to do this. ;)

    Cheers,
    Javier

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Javier!

    I was hoping you would weigh in on this.

    ReplyDelete