Justin's Opinion Piece on Diversity in Advertisments

   

         In my last blog post, I touched on this subject slightly by highlighting ethical concerns with casting in production. My goal will be to broaden this topic as diversity issues proceed much more than this in not only Journalism and News but Advertisements as well. In this subfield of advertisements, I will be referencing Heinikin's "Lighter is Better" and the BMW "Berlin to Warsaw in One Tank" commercials.

Background Information:

Heinikin's "Sometimes Lighter is Better" 2018

        This play on words as you might call it can easily be taken the wrong way if you did not understand that lighter is a description being used to describe and define a type of beer. However, the depiction of the commercial starts with a man of lighter complexion using binoculars to spot an attractive woman (also of lighter complexion) at the end of the bar. The man proceeds to open a bottle, sliding it down the bar towards her past multiple darker complexion people where the bottle rests in front of her with the infamous phrase superimposed. Heineken has been known for a laundry list of ethical concerns including tax avoidance and mistreatment of women. Chance the Rapper was one of the first major icons to call not only Heinkin out but commercials of similar nature claiming that these blatantly racist statements were intended for shock value to get more viewers. Heineken's Spokesperson said that they missed the mark and will learn from their mistake. 

        Although most of us, including myself, agree that this was toned death and that this company has done more to divide people rather than bring them together, I must concede that Heikins recent marketing has been very successful recently by centering around their bottle opener gimmick that "shuts down work apps". I cannot say for certain whether this is a long-term change or improvement for the company but it is certainly a step.  

Jeremy Clarkson's "From Belin to Warsaw in One Tank" Spoof

        Jeremy Clarkson is an English Broadcaster who worked as the presenter for an episode of "Top Gear" which is a BBC program. The episode contained a "Spoof Advert" which portrayed polish people fleeing on buses and trains due to their fuel crisis cutting to a frame of the Volkswagon Scirocco TDI with the superimposed text "From Berlin to Warsaw in One Tank". This "joke" was clearly a reference to Germany's invasion of Poland during WWII considering that BMW and Mini are German-engineered vehicles. But another layer of significance is that Volkswagon also manufactured tanks and aircraft for Germany in WWII. The airing of the episode followed with around one hundred complaints and Jeremy Clarkson made continual racist remarks throughout his career and even punched one of his production members in the face after there was not much food left because it had gone cold.

         He is a very unpleasant person as we can understand from his behavior and was eventually taken off of the show. Although Voltwagon and German people were victims to this incident of his, as I discussed before, Volkswagon is not entirely innocent of criticism. Not only because of Voltswagons history but because of the emissions scandal that they have been trying to regain public trust and favor of. Voltswagons "all green electric" BMW busses is one of many instances of this.

Final Thoughts:

        These are just two instances of how not understanding the big picture that one's message has on an audience intentional or not can have consequences . They are different circumstances with striking similarities. The issue of diversity in media stems from other problems that are outside of representation. We should not only consider this a symptom of the sick but place it as the center of focus as well. I encourage you all to seek out similar advertisements to assess for yourselves how these companies have changed or remained the same. As for me, I believe in the understanding that advertisements were always intended to sell more of a product so I believe that the techniques that they employ to try to improve public opinion are superficial and have little relevance to how those responsible learn the error in their behaviors. Please feel free to comment what you think about this, and thank you for reading.