I agree with you in principle, but I have issues with two of your assertions:

1. It is an assumption that MS did this due to a belief that people in Poland do not like blacks.  Let's switch this around and think of it another way... what if someone creating an ad for a woman-specific product (makeup, women's shoes, etc.) decided to replace one of the two male images with another female image to make the ad more relevant to the target audience?  Would that be an issue?  From a marketing perspective, I don't believe it would.  So it's difficult to determine if the goal was to remove the image of a black man or to add another image of a white man.  I'm betting on the latter as the goal of marketing is to try and appeal/relate to the target audience as much as possible.

2. Why do people in this thread keep referring to MS as though it is a monolithic entity, i.e. - "these companies set themselves up".  This implies that MS executive management in Redmond, WA had something to do with the specifics of a localized ad outside the US.  Highly unlikely.

I think MS probably does adhere very closely with US law regarding hiring minorities.  Does the company senior management enforce this out of sense of rightness, etc.?   The senior management as a whole probably does feel strongly that minority applicants should be given a fair chance at open positions, but I doubt they believe that ethnic diversity equates directly to a diversity of ideas.

I attended a diversity training program at the company I work for (a Fortune 100 company), and we broke into small groups to discuss why the company promotes/should promote hiring diversity.  Every group other than mine came to a concensus that it was to promote a diversity of ideas, etc.  My group attempted to come to that concensus, but I refused to go along.  I said it was primarily to adhere to Afirmative Action laws.

My group finally presented our "concensus", which was the same as the other groups, and the leader of the group pointed out that I was the only detractor.  The lady from HR, who was black by the way, stated that I was correct.  The primary reason for the company to promote minority hiring was to adhere to the law.  When many of those in the training lodged loud complaints, she explained to them that companies are in business to make money and succeed in the market, and that meeting abstract tangental goals such as promoting minority hiring was not a bad thing, but that it could not be the focus of the business.  She then explained that the company attempted to blend the goals of getting the best applicants, regardless of race, etc., and the goal of adhering to US law by aggressively seeking out high-talent minority applicants, thereby improving the minority pool of available applicants and improving the company's ability to achieve both goals at the same time.  In other words, the company was not convinced that simply having employees of different ethnic or racial origins would provide for diverse problem solving, etc.

I felt that was a very clever, out-of-the-box way to meet the company's primary goal--to make money and prosper in the market--while still adhering to the letter and spirit of the Afirmative Action laws.  Sadly, many were offended by the fact that the company wasn't acting in a strictly philosophical manner.  So be it.

The point I'm trying to make is that MS isn't a devil for focusing on profits, or an angel for focusing on hiring minorities.  They're just doing what a business should do in this case... try to make money while doing so as a good corporate citizen.  Does this mean they haven't done bad things in the past?  I think we all realize they have.  But it doesn't mean that every time someone in a small MS office overseas or perhaps even at an ad agency that's running a campaign for them does something that smells odd, that the act is automatically "evil".

Some people are just incredible touchy at anything that even remotely hints at some sort of racial offense.

There are 10 Wally's. It shouldn't be hard to find them all.

Haha.

Found them. The guy is holding one on his lap?

Lol yeah.. They stand out to much on the picture but I wanted to keep it fair by not making him 5 pixel's big.

@crumas2

One thing I've learn in organizational behavior training over the years...people tend to fall back on what's comfortable for them, and barring some mechanism to motive them to change their behavior, they will take the path of "least" resistance....that's just human nature. A perfect example is Xerox, which now has an African American female as the CEO (Ursala Burns), and she relieved a white female...that is really astounding, but it shouldn't be...it should be no big deal. My point is that if you look at the progression of Ms. Burns, and read about her path to getting to where she is...it was because of a corporate culture that valued diversity, and one that found that it was the right thing to do...not because of some AA laws on the books, but because it made great business sense. By promoting diversity as a corporate culture, you increase the pool of the talent pool you have to nurture into getting the long term benefits. So, in my corporate retreat this year, this topic was one of our focal points of discussion, and we pretty much when down the path of Xerox, in valuing the benefits of what diversity means, vice trying to answer the mail for some Federal mandates. The other thing it that somehow, diversity always seems to mean issues related to African Americans…as if Hispanics and Asian Americans, and even Women aren’t “minorities” in corporate America.

I think it is hilarious that this happened, especially the bad photo shopping. To the people complaining... Please please please stop bitching. We will never see 100% eye to eye on racism as a whole until we mix and blend till we are no different. Then we will live in peace. But that may take only forever.

Hey buddy you really need to cool it.  Your setting a double standard. Don't bitch about something and then completly do a 180 on the other. You don't even know if a Polish person had a part in this. On top of everything there are also many people in Europe who have never seen a Black/African person in real life. It is the change people are scared of.

Want a better example look up Native Mexicans and Spaniards. The natives thought they were Gods because of their unusual light colored skin & advanced technologies and were treated as such. Had the Spaniards been less advance and unintellegent then it would have been reverse. It is the change that people fear... not the skin color.

I love how people try to act as if they understand racism then use derogitory language that makes you just seem unitelligetable. Also just display as much ignorance as the original offender but expect justice. Martin Luther King didn't cause change because he yelled a bunch of crap about how white people don't do this and do that. He gave repect and was given repect. That is how the world revolves. When respect isn't given to you once you have presented it then you are free to take it by force.

All I have to say is a lot of you are really talented and funny with your photoshop renditions. Maybe Vgchartz should host its own photoshop friday like something awful.

Someone sucks at photoshop, i mean come on you left the black hands dude. 

What a noob.