Hey, Tiffany I read every post on your blog. Yeah that commercial was SOMETHING else. I saw it just before they pulled it off of YouTube. Hand vaginas? Really? Its bad enough that in the past I have been grossed out by tampon commercials of women wearing 80% of white clothing all through the commercial. But back to this commercial. We all now that stereotypes are standardized assumptions, which are bad and may hold some truth to them. Well in this commercial, the assumption is that ALL women of certain ethnicity act and talk this way in real life. I can see what they were trying to do; I guess the ad was to come off humorous. Instead it came off racist, tacky and plain unnecessary. I can understand they are trying to sell a product and
that our “POCKET BOOK” may need more TLC then regular old Ivory soap can give it., but the “Hey Girl” and ” AY-YI-YI” is not going to make me going running to Wal-Mart to pick up any of their products. When you really think about it, you can tell most of the time, but not all the time the ethnicity of the person without the extras. This commercial is no better then those relaxer commercials I see on BET. Just my 2 cents.

Also here is a link to a show that shows the clips of the commercial and they weren’t too fond about it either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52GcTFvIqTU

But on a lighter note, I was running through one of my shows on the DVR, and I came across two commercials. One from Fruit of the Loom, which has two naturals . The second one is a Safelite Commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Lm44y81zg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj0DbvjaChs&feature=channel_video_title

I’m a guy, so of course I don’t have any use for the product in question, but I think in advertiser’s zeal to capture minorty/diverse markets – it’s often a case of “trying too hard” coupled with ad departments/agencies who lack minorites with the kind of cultural outlook to ensure that campaign is executed correctly. The McDonald’s R&B “McNugget Lovin” commercials immediately come to mind. For someone who is pretty much making an estimation of how a certain group thinks and acts with no cultural context, save for someone else’s estimation in the same media, these kind of “one size fits all” generalizations are to be expected. It’s cyclical.

As a point of reference to the lack of diverse persons in advertising, in 2006, the New York City Commission on Human Rights (NYCCHR), acting on a complaint from Sanford Moore, an African American who had worked at agencies including BBDO, launched an investigation of 16 prominent New York firms, including BBDO, DDB, Ogilvy & Mather, Saatchi & Saatchi and Young & Rubicam. The agencies settled with the commission, committing to increase diversity over three years. Sorry, but I don’t have the time to explore what kind of advertising diversity headway has been made in the wake of this ruling, but at least in talking to friends who are involved in advertising, I’d wager it slim to none.