Gears criticised for stereotyping

[kenzomatic]

rocketpig said:
Kenzo, as far as I know, it's never been required to add minorities. But since I have never worked with government advertisers, I can't be sure of that.

The reason advertisers do it is simple: it shows diversity and frankly, white people either don't care or they get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that minorities are getting "their fair share" of "stuff", whatever that "stuff" might be. It's absurd, really, and somehow it just worked its way into things. You would think that targeting the intended demographic would be more effective but that just isn't the prevailing thought nowadays. Instead, we get everything from ancient Chinese men to disaffected youth to serial rapists in your average Wii commercial.

I mean, look at this. What does this ad say about anything other than "Look at how diverse we are, folks! And we're having with our diversity!"


Sad thing is, everyone does it nowadays. I guess by putting every demographic you can find in the same ad image, the less chance you have of offending anyone or alienating the one odd straggler from that demographic that *may* be interested in your product.

And before everyone jumps down my throat, I'm not saying that only white people should be in ads nor am I picking on the Wii. That's just a prime example of how modern advertisers are focusing on political correctness over focusing on targeting a core market. This applies to everything from socio-economic status to race to age to gender.

Yeah its also well reflected when you buy any stock photography of people doing anything. A lot of the stuff I have done for the state of Florida has had thoose kind of requirments. Now whats really fun is the day you need to find a photo of someone not smiling. JK