How can Marketers Avoid Culturally or Racially Offensive Advertising?
/If your product or your approach even hints at being culturally or racially offensive, it’s worth the time and expense to see how people in the real world react to it with focus groups, online surveys, or other exposure to limited audiences. We don’t recommend that every marketing idea or ad campaign undergo focus group review, but the world is a diverse and litigious place and people’s life experience, sense of humor, education level, exposure to new ideas, and so on all affect how they are likely to react to the ads, ideas, turns of phrase, imagery, etc. that a brand puts out. Having developed creative advertising and materials for many consumer packaged goods (CPG), health plans, hospitals, utilities, automobiles, electronics, retailers, and more for over 35 years, we can assure you that a little extra insight into how your target audiences will react to your concepts is never a bad thing.
With that said, it’s also our long-held belief that advertisers should not do every single thing that any focus group says to do. That’s one of the fastest ways to end up with the most boring, milquetoast, nondescript advertising on the planet. It would be like giving small children approval over what goes on the menu at your favorite French cafe or seafood restaurant. Unless you want the equivalent of chicken fingers and mac & cheese for the next few years, you will listen, but pick your own solutions. It can be constructive to hear how a focus group or other feedback provider responds — especially if some of those responses are gasps or shrieks at points in the ad that are unexpected by your team. That’s a sign of a pending, “Crap, why would anyone think we meant THAT?” moment.
Another option that marketers can take is to have 2–3 lawyers review and comment on the ad. In fact, most large corporations insist that their legal team see ads before there are broadcast or published. We actually recommend attorneys from outside the company, though, because you are more likely to get honest feedback from parties who don’t think their job is on the line if they deliver unwelcome feedback. Of course, you also will never create breakthrough ads by doing exactly what a lawyer tells you to – it’s their job to play it safe – but even if you intend to push the outer envelope of good (or bad) taste with an edgy ad, it’s smart to know where things stand before you go on air or to press.
Thankfully, most U.S. examples of culturally tone deaf or racially cringe-worthy ads that come to mind quickly for us are from many, many years ago. One of the worst was a laundry detergent ad where of course the owners of a laundry service were Chinese. Quite recently, though, an ad where a black woman becomes a white woman caused a stir, and should have. Many people today comment that “everyone is so oversensitive” as a broad whine about why today isn’t as good as “the old days.” But if more people are, in fact, overly sensitive today, perhaps that’s because too many were so blithely and insultingly insensitive in the past.
In the end, how far you decide to push before going “over the line” into truly offensive ideas or language is a judgement call, but your gut should “just say no” to the use of 99.9% of ethnic, gender-specific, or cultural stereotyping and other jabs. Because even if you are being light-hearted or sarcastic – and you think they know that – it’s rarely worth risking a lawsuit or high exodus of customers just to prove your point.