Why Advertising Directed At People of Color Doesn’t Land For Me

I’ve always felt completely objectified by advertisements. As a woman, obviously, and a black woman especially, but not always for the reasons you might think. As much as I believe it is truly important to have people of color in mainstream media, whenever I see a person of color in a cereal ad, I want to shout: “STOP TRYING TO SELL ME CHEERIOS! I don’t want Cheerios because the beautiful interracial couple and their adorable mixed race child on your advertisement looks JUST LIKE ME. I want Cheerios because they’re freakin’ delicious.” When I see people of color in advertisements, I actually feel more like an “other.” It shouldn’t feel this way. It should feel normal, like the real world, like we’re finally being seen. Instead it feels contrived, because colorblindness is a total fallacy, and I’m smart enough to know that advertisers are really trying to sell me some junk I don’t need, and that may in fact be killing me.

As a performer myself, I am an advocate for bringing more color to mainstream media. Moreover, there has to be a wider representation of the color spectrum in all aspects of entertainment. I don’t think it’s a secret that people of color, especially women of color, are regularly exploited in order to line the pockets of the primarily white men who run the entertainment industry. There has also been plenty of discussion about how people of color are used in advertisements meant for consumption by white people in order to market a product as “cool” or “urban.” We all know white folks love them some cultural appropriation. Slightly more complex, however, is the exploitation that occurs when POC are featured in advertisements marketed toward other POC.

Black Hair Screengrab

Screenshot of Google search

A few products that come to mind are menthol cigarettes, Black hair products, and fast food. What is the common denominator here? All of these products are killing us. Cigarettes and fast food pose an obvious health issue. Black hair products, while not all as harmful or expensive as relaxers and weaves, can be physically and emotionally damaging for Black women. Many Black women spend an exorbitant amount of time and money attempting to conform to a white standard of beauty. The advertising industry and the companies for which they work set this standard. And while people should feel free to express themselves with whichever hairstyle they so choose, there is a massive industry that relies on perpetuating a whitewashed version of Black beauty. A look at almost every cover of Sophisticate’s Black Hair Styles magazine will show you that when they say “Black Hair,” they mean wigs, weaves, and relaxers. Very rarely do they feature women with natural hair, and when they do, it is to sell a product. I know this because I once did a spread for Black Hair, and I wore my hair naturally. They used this as an opportunity to use my face to sell a bunch of products I do not and would never use. They also falsified pretty much all of the interview, paraphrasing some parts and completely fabricating others. Ironically, their September issue is a tribute to going natural, but one cover story does not a revolution make.

Early examples of advertising directed squarely at people of color are a series of late 1950s Pepsi advertisements called “The Sociables,” which I stumbled upon in college while marveling at the not-so-subtle misogynist and racist overtones of retro ads in publications like Esquire and Ebony magazine. There were versions of the advertisement published in white magazines featuring white people, but the versions published in Ebony featured “affluent” African American families enjoying Pepsi. While a refreshing change of pace from the racist stereotypes used to sell products to whites in the past, this targeted advertisement presents an unrealistic portrayal of Blackness, at least for the time: The African American Dream; access to all of the material things that make whiteness so appealing. These are “respectable” Black folks.

In fact, Pepsi was long considered to be the “Black Coke.” Taking advantage of the fact that Coca-Cola marketed almost exclusively to whites, Pepsi cornered the African American market and event went as far as hiring a “negro markets” advertising team in the late ’40s. Eventually people caught on, and began associating Coca-Cola with whites, and Pepsi with Blacks. In an effort to reverse this image and expand their market, Coca-Cola formed a relationship with the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People], who even to this day lobby in favor of Coca Cola. When Mayor Bloomberg tried to ban large sugary soft drinks in NYC, the NAACP stood up in favor of Coke, under the guise that the ban would negatively impact minority business owners.

According to Clint C. Wilson II and Felix Gutierrez, authors of Advertising and People of Color, advertising companies began catering to Black and Latino audiences in response to Civil Rights era consumer boycotts of companies that practiced racist policies, and adversely supported companies that employed non-whites:

This philosophy of repaying the corporations that invest in the minority communities through consumer purchases was replicated in other cities. It was followed by slick advertising campaigns directed at minority consumers. In 1984 the same line of thinking led to the brewers of Coors beer attempting to end disputes with Blacks and Latinos by signing controversial agreements with the [NAACP] and five national Latino groups that committed the brewery to increase its financial support of the activities of those organizations as Blacks and Latinos increased their drinking of Coors beer.

We can add soda and beer to the laundry list of physically harmful products companies are selling directly to people of color. And not because the brewers are concerned about the lack of access to affordable booze, but because “there’s money in it,” stated Carolyn R. Jones, executive vice president of Mingo Jones Advertising, in 1984. Wilson and Gutierrez explain:

Among the factors [Jones] cited as making Blacks desirable customers was a reported disposable income of more than $150 million, a “high propensity for brand names and indulgence items,” a high degree of “brand loyalty,” a young and growing population, growing education and income, concentration in the nation’s largest 25 cities and “its own growing media network.”

Given that Ms. Jones was writing in 1984, it’s easy to presume she was referring to the booming Hip-Hop culture of the ’80s, a genre that became instantly popular amongst both urban blacks and suburban white teens. These were demographics that record companies and clothing brands were eager to exploit. Just take a listen to Run DMCs “My Adidas” and tell me it wasn’t product placement at its finest. That trend has been Hip-Hop’s unfortunate legacy to this day: a means of using Black people to sell Black culture.

Fast-forward to the 21st century, and you’ll find this abomination: McDonald’s “365 Black.” Their tagline? “Deeply rooted in the community.” This is McDonald’s almost laughable attempt at convincing Black folks that they are not trying to murder them with their poisonous foodstuffs, but rather a company that promotes racial equality — nay, is a beacon of morality and a pillar of the community. The website boasts McDonald’s as the breeding ground for such superstars as Keith Sweat and Laurie Ann Gibson.

For a moment, let’s ignore the fact that fast food is ostensibly responsible for a nationwide obesity epidemic, providing the only affordable food option for poor people of color living in “food deserts.” Let’s just focus on how gross it is to market this junk directly to Black people. The website encourages young people and students to become a member of “Team 365 celebrating African American culture 365 days a year,” as opposed to the oft-lamented extra short month of February granted to us by the government. Hiding in plain sight, that’s what this is: a marketing strategy that uses Black people as human shields from accusations of promoting environmental racism. We’re not racist! Our best friends are Black people! What a load of baloney. Maybe if more people of color were the ones owning the big businesses and making the advertisements, they wouldn’t come off as so contrived. Or maybe they wouldn’t seem that way purely because of circumstance: knowing that there is racial equality would take the bite out of seeing Black people used to sell products.

We can’t talk about POC in advertising without acknowledging that Asian and Native cultures are routinely mocked with incredible fervor. Advertisers take special care to exploit Blacks and Latinos in a way that doesn’t come off as racist, but has the same subliminally damaging effects. Asians and Natives, however, don’t receive the same courtesy. They are still reduced to stereotypes and artifacts used to market products and nobody seems to care at all.

So, it’s no wonder that whenever I pass by an advertisement with a bouncy haired light-skinned brown woman selling me lavender scented tampons, or a burger that looks nothing like it would if I bought it at the advertised fast-food restaurant, I get uncomfortable. Even though I am myself a bouncy-haired light-skinned brown woman, I do not relate to this airbrushed version of myself. Instead, I see Uncle Sam casting his blue-eyed gaze and shoving his pale, crooked old finger right at my forehead: We Want You!.

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Hannah Hodson

Hannah Hodson is a 22-year old Brooklyn-bred writer and actor. She graduated Hampshire College with a very valuable BA in Theatre and Black Studies. She currently resides in DUMBO, Brooklyn, where she admires the view while writing poetry about gentrification, climate change, race, class and other heavy stuff, but tries to keep a positive outlook on it all. She recently met Abbi and Ilana from Broad City (IRL), and has photos to prove it. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter, for her thoughts on Beyonce.

Hannah has written 36 articles for us.

16 Comments

  1. This is so beautifully written and so important. A great example of how incorporating marginalized people into fucked up institutions does not create justice.

  2. YES, all of this, all of it. Like, I would love to see more representation in media, but never like this. I feel like it’s gonna be a long time before we get past exploitative “representation,” and then by the time we do…I dunno, at that point I won’t want to be included in the ~lamestream~ anymore, anyway, cos of how much I haven’t identified with it for the majority of my life (but that’s just my selfish hipster-y tendency)

  3. mmmmmmmmmmmm this resonated with my soul (and also explains why my family is like strangely pro-pepsi and anti-coke.)

  4. Yes! This is my frustration when it comes to advertising and everyday representation.

    One of my biggest gripes of how trends “trickle down” to marginalized populations. When a trend finally have POC (usually black and brown) representation the trend of product is seen as “outdated” to worse black and brown people are seen as “backwards” for late-adopting a trend/ product.

    A good example is bottled water, I remember when bottled water was THING and most of the advertisements only featured thin white cis bodies enjoying it and being part of the health craze. Then I also remember Rozonda Thomas (Chilli from TLC) being featured in A LOT of Dasani water print ads but by that time, bottle water was seen as a waste and bad for the environment. Clearly Dasani realized their target market (white people) turned away from it because if the rise of eco-friendliess. This is one example I clearly remember and it has made me question the motives of marketing and advertising to black and brown people.

    Oh and Beyoncé pushing Pepsi? Oh girl, no. Hip-hop being seen as a genre of materialism? Oh girl, I wish I had time.

    Thank you for this article and Hannah, you are quickly becoming one of my favorite writers!

  5. Hannah, you are killing it with this piece. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

    Also, thank you thank you for including a few lines about Native and Asian representation. There’s a lot to unpack there and I appreciate the nod.

  6. This was very well written and definitely made me rethink some of those advertisements, which maybe I always had a strange feeling about but didn’t have the words or the experience to articulate.

  7. Great article! Made me think about a lot of things in my fridge! I never knew that about Pepsi! I love Pepsi and now that I think about it when I was a little girl my grandmother would always have it stocked in their fridge. She also has every copy of Ebony and Jet magazine since 1970! Very interesting!

  8. Wonderful read, thank you Hannah!

    I have always hated advertisements. I try to either avoid or critically take apart as much of advertising as I can, whether is on tv, before a YouTube video, a billboard, a magazine, or that worst of all worsts, the radio/ spotify ad (why are you breaking up the mood of my music?!?! Don’t you know radio ads are the least effective advertising medium?). I refuse to watch ads; I mute them so I don’t have to listen; I flip past print ads, or stop to pick apart and mock their appalling obviousness.

    What’s interesting is that I have grown up with exceptionally good self-esteem and body image. There’s a lot that went into that, but I think a lot of the lack of insecurity-residue on my psyche can be accounted for by the fact that I’ve never watched much tv, I hardly ever go in malls, and I really only read news magazines that don’t have many product ads. Many of my confident friends who’ve grown up loved and affirmed still express to me the sense Things on a day-to-day basis that suggest they feel they are lacking: “should I get [this product]? Should I do my hair like this? Do I look alright?” And they always already look great and clearly don’t need another object in their life, and it makes me sad.

    I encourage everyone to think critically about advertising, especially when it is as fake and destructive and ugly as the directed-at-POC stuff Hannah’s writing about here. But I also encourage you to just say no to enduring ads at all, even as background noise, even as background to the environments where you hang out. It’s just extra junk you don’t need in your head, and I promise you’ll feel freer without it.

  9. “Maybe if more people of color were the ones owning the big businesses and making the advertisements, they wouldn’t come off as so contrived. Or maybe they wouldn’t seem that way purely because of circumstance: knowing that there is racial equality would take the bite out of seeing Black people used to sell products.”

    This was a profound punch to my mind. Amazing article, thanks for challenging my assumptions about representation in the media.

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