"Hey, you know what would be really funny?" asked the Creative at Grey, NY, to nobody in particular. "If we took these sexy supermodels and juxtaposed them with 'trashy' versions of themselves in the SI swimsuit issue!"
And thus a DIRECTV campaign was born:
What could be funnier than fantastically rich supermodels pretending to be less glamorous people?
A lot, probably. But it's the last juxtaposition that really bothers me. The intention is to show that DIRECTV is for the beautiful, sexy people, while cable is for... you know... others. Like working class housewives, or cat ladies, or or service industry workers.
That's not out-of-touch at all. Not even the slight bit classist. Nope.
Oddly, South China Post is calling this an example of "blackface":
Nonetheless, it is pretty racist. In a comedy bit that would be at home in the west in the 1960s, the unnamed Chinese actor plays both himself and his bumbling Filipina maid. It's an ad promoting advertisement "domestic helper insurance" from Malaysia’s Hong Leong Bank.
The ad, which ran in Hong Kong, was harshly criticized by advocates for migrant domestic workers:
“You are making comedy out of someone, out of a community,” said Eni Lestari, spokeswoman for the Asian Migrants’ Coordinating Body. “For [Hongkongers] it’s funny, but what they don’t realise is what’s funny is actually racist.”
The bank, in turn, issued the standard non-apology:
“We regret that our recent advertisement … resulted in comments about the advertisement being racist,” said spokeswoman Norlina Yunus. “At no time did Hong Leong … intend to offend any person or be to any extent discriminatory on grounds of race, sex or otherwise.”
No, maybe they didn't "intend" to, but insensitivity is not always an intentional offence. That said, it wouldn't hurt to say, "We are sorry for being so insensitive to the dignity of Filipinos, as well as to domestic workers of any ethnicity. We are taking steps to ensure that all of our advertising is more carefully reviewed against our corporate values, and a gesture we are contributing X to a fund to help make this right."
… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.
Conservative party chairman Grant Shapps has insisted he loves bingo and drinks beer after he faced a storm of criticism over a poster he tweeted following the UK budget this week.
Chancellor George Osborne gave the bingo industry a tax cut and took a penny off beer duty in the budget, prompting Shapps to tweet a poster reading ‘Bingo! Cutting the bingo tax and been duty – to help hard working people do more of the things they enjoy’.
Shapps encouraged followers to retweet him and spread the word – which they did, kicking off a storm in which users accused him of being condescending. He also faced criticism for using the term ‘they’.
Mr. Shapps has since defended his message, insisting, “personally, I drink beer and I love a game of bingo." The Guardian's Owen Jones called it "so patronising it looks like a crude attempt at satire."
Here are some of the better reactions on Twitter:
@double_dex I've never been more convinced something real was fake. Maybe it's some sort of genius we haven't worked out?
— daysofspeed (@daysofspeed) March 19, 2014
Sweet Jaysus, @grantshapps, why not just stick a picture up of a bloke with a flat cap, whippets and a fucking football ticket.
— Chris Nicholson (@EraseThisTweet) March 19, 2014
It's one of those dumb ads that uses a stereotype about the need to fit in at school. But how times have changed!
This back-to-school ad has ignited an emotional debate on social media. On the one side, we have parents outraged that, by joking about the exclusion of kids with uncool clothes, JC Penney is promoting bullying or classism:
What do you think? I'm not personally offended by the ad, but I can also see why (in this economy) it struck a nerve in some parents. As you can see above, the company is responding to complaints with a PR blurb that is pretty noncommittal, however they acknowledge they have discontinued the ad anyway.
Perhaps the real lesson here is for creatives: Come up with some new damn ideas, rather than rehashing clichés you remember from your youth. And for marketers: Oversensitive or not, this is the new reality of democratic communication. Deal with it honestly and with empathy.
For those of us on this side of the Atlantic, "Chav" is a classist term for obnoxious and vain people of lower socioeconomic status, equivalent to "Guido" in America.
Online gambling operation Paddy Power, who have figured out the best media plan is to get your ads banned, came up with this one that they say is unbroadcastable in Great Britain.
It is pretty amusing, though. Someone should send that sniper to New Jersey.
