Lost In Translation.

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It is 2013, does stereotyping have a place in marketing anymore? Throughout the past years, marketing agencies have integrated stereotyping in their advertisements in order to target a specific population of consumers. This includes portraying certain races in advertisements in a manner that seem offensive to different people. Whether the agencies' intent was meant to harm other races or not is beyond me. All I know is that as time progressed, more people began to show great disapproval towards these types of advertisements. As a person who believes that stereotyping is no longer necessary, I can still see why it is needed in the eyes of a marketing agency.

Obviously, the objective of a marketing agency is to help sell a product through the use of many advertising tools. Economically speaking, the purpose of a company is to maximize profit. Here is where the issue lies. How does a company maximize profit through marketing? Well, we have the different types of advertising tools (commercials, magazine ads, etc.) and its mass production (by this, meaning maximizing the amount of tools to send the message to the public). Next, we have the content. How can a marketing agency maximize profit through marketing in an ad itself? The best way I can think of is to target a large population. How? Through developing an ad that can make (or close to make anyways) that population relate to it. This is where stereotyping comes into play. This is how and why I can see marketing agencies still find stereotyping necessary. However, do marketing agencies take it too far sometimes?

The stereotypes marketing agencies depict are sometimes taken too far. What is meant by "taken too far" is that these advertisements have made an implicit and/or explicit offensive statement to a distinct group of people. The idea of being "taken too far" comes from the public that perceives and gives meaning to these advertisements. The issue is that we do not entirely know the true intent behind stereotypes that are presented in these advertisements. In addition, there is the problem of how the public perceives these presentations and how the public gives meaning to them. Therefore, we do not truly know if what we see and believe is what presenter actually intended. Also, we do not know if the one perceiving is misinterpreting the message given to them. Moving forward, although some people may say there's a problem, it doesn't entirely mean that there actually is one. In terms of the problem of racism found in advertisements with stereotypes, I feel that this is not the case.

 

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There are advertisements that may seem innocuous, but may be harmful when examined closely. Innocuous meaning that it is not perceived as a group of people are being targeted in an offensive manner. Harmful as in the message is targeting a group of people in an offensive manner. It can be found in many advertisements. In a magazine ad by L'Oreal in 2009, the whitening of skin was implied to be better. This ad consisted of four photographs of Beyonce's (an African-American singer) face progressively whiten. In the first picture, her face is dark. By the fourth picture, her face is lighter and virtually white. Essentially, the message implied (whether it was intended or not) is use L'Oreal and your skin will get whiter, which is synonymous with better. Another example can be found in the Dr. Pepper Ten commercial. It explicitly states that Dr. Pepper Ten is for men only. Simultaneously, showing a muscular man in a tight shirt doing action scenes in a film. Then again, when I think about it, it is not saying men are better than women. It simply states that it's not a drink women would like. Coincidentally, some people were still offended by it. The effects of these ads have given the some people (if not many) a negative outlook on the commercial and company. In addition, does this even help a company help maximize profit? Would someone want to buy from a company that has advertisements that could be perceived as harmful? I would like to think not. Moreover, I feel that advertisements should no longer use stereotypes due to the backlash they receive afterwards.

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Why advertise something could potentially harm how the public perceives a company? I feel that at
this day an age, this generation is moving towards coexistence. People are still racists and people are always stereotyped. Consequently, advertising should push for a more positive image. For example, an advertising piece from Oliviero Toscani's "United Colors of Benetton." Not all of his pieces of course, but one's that show people of all sorts coexisting (not sure about criminals and innocent people and other drastic ones). An example of this would be the ad where a Caucasian woman and African woman hold an Asian infant together. Then again, I realize that people will make claims of it being racist. Now that I take a step back and think about this issue. I find that anything can be considered racist, stereotypical, or harmful based on how people perceive things. I am truly lost and I cannot see a way for marketing agencies to not receive criticism for their ads. I truly do not know what to say or what to believe anymore.

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