Profit or Prejudice? Race Sensitivity Creates New Marketing Risks

Townhall.com ^ | September 14, 2014 | Autry J. Pruitt

[ClearCase_guy]

The only true racism I see is the black attitude toward whites. It’s vicious, it’s hateful, it’s ubiquitous.

[GeronL]

a lot of companies in the 40’s had ads directed at minorities, Pepsi was not the only one

[GeronL]

Doesn't look racist to me.

[GeronL]

Ad in 40's Life magazine

[GeronL]

Um... what??

[Kaslin]

Neither does it to me.

[festusbanjo]

Similar to the Pepsi scenario, McDonalds tied their image to the “low price value menu” and “hip urban” market in order to gain the incremental market share from the lower income and minority demographic. What that did was create a perception of low value and poor quality for their product that drove away the middle income and non minority customer. The straw man that Levinson has proffered is less about any guilt he may have at his emails, and more about the fact that the Hawks are a sinking ship, and having seen how much the L.A. Clippers sold for, he decided to voluntarily back away from the team and sell his share for what he could before the market reality set in on the actual value of a poor product in a below average basketball market like Atlanta.

[Kaslin]

I don’t doubt it

[GeronL]

I also don’t doubt it was a small portion of their ad budgets

[boop]

There was a big stink some time ago about this ad. It was supposedly "racist". I just thought it was a nice way of saying hey, black families, you are welcome at McDonald's.

We want YOUR money, too.

Plus it shows an intact, working class family.

What's so wrong about that?

[grania]

It is not racist to say that people feel uncomfortable when they can’t racially or culturally identify with a significant percentage of a crowd. If basketball only caters to blacks with crummy music taste, that’ll be their audience.

[leapfrog0202]

Excellent article! Thanks for posting. This guy gets it.

[Alberta's Child]

That's an interesting point. I actually keep an eye out for ad campaigns aimed at minorities for some of the reasons you describe here.

I remember telling myself a few years ago that Toyota wasn't doing themselves any favors when they launched an ad campaign aimed at black Americans. In that particular case I don't think perception was as much a problem as reality for Toyota. It was clear to me that they had pretty much reached the peak of their market share in traditional auto sales, and their only growth opportunity lay in selling cheap, lower-quality vehicles to people with less disposable income. The quality ratings of their vehicles in the next few years pretty much confirmed this.

[Dilbert San Diego]

The music played at sports events nowadays gets on my nerves. If it were up to me they would bring back old fashioned organists at baseball games. And they would turn down the decibel level quite a bit.

[PeterPrinciple]

Whether yellow black or white, they are precious in His sight.

---

Been a long time since I heard that marketing ploy............

[grania]

I think the "there's no tipping" could be perceived as racist. "you don't have to get dressed up" could've been replaced with something else, or omitted. Also dinnertimin' and anytimin' and waitin' refer to a negative image of black speech patterns. These statements do reinforce stereotypes, and that's one definition of racism. Even if the stereotypes are true, it's still racist to define people by them. Why is the guy walking in black?

Yeah, the ad is pretty bad. Besides that, it would definitely discourage whites and even other minorities from going to McDonalds.

[GeronL]

That woman had no legs??

[GeronL]

The woman in back is not intact! Nothing below the table.

[GeronL]

lol