Racial Clash

Black and white, though simple colors, often cause a lot of tension when brought up together--that is to say, people see color very clearly. In advertising, it's common practice to play to your audience through color. Racial profiling, then, is the practice of using race to target an audience. Though race may not have much to do with the product itself, customer identification will identify the product to the world.


For instance, the South Pole clothing line has a large presence in urban, low-income, largely African-American communities and stores who cater to those communities, such as discount retailer Ross or TJ Maxx. If you look at an ad for South Pole products, the company clearly knows their audience, as almost all of the models are of African-American descent. South pole shows their audience themselves as a better version of themselves, that is to say themselves in South Pole clothing. This is racial profiling, not racism.

However, targeting race can be far more offensive. Occasionally, in advertising, racial characteristics will be displayed in such a way that the target race is offended for comedic effect or shock value to get associate something with the product. Racial stereotyping, then, is the practice of using race to burn an image into the audiences' mind. Once again, race may not have much to do with the product; however, the association of the racial spotlight is not with the target audience.

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   !!AUSTRALIA'S KFC COMMERCIAL COOKING UP RACISM?!!

   
   

   To explain, we can see in this commercial that two groups stand at odds. One group, the white Australian, stands in the form of one lone, calm man trying to watch a game. The other group, the natives ("West Indians"), show themselves to the audience as a loud, obnoxious people who can be quieted only by the

   presentation of KFC, as if they were animals. In the context of this commercials region of origin, this

   advertisement is playing strongly on the racial divide of the two groups for shock value. It is an attempt to get the audience to remember a startling scene with an attached name, not a valued product. This is racism, albeit with harmless intentions.

So then, do these types of advertisements harm anyone? Is one more harmful than the other? While an advertisement like the South Pole ad will probably harm only the most sensitive people, those trying to escape all forms of profiling, an ad like the KFC ad directly targets and exploits an entire group of people and is likely to harm someone. Many advertisement companies should take a good look at what their ads are presenting to the world, for public media sways public opinion. There are ethics and responsibilities in advertising that many people seem to ignore, and these slips in judgment do no one any good.