MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.
Wanted to provide further commentary on The Home Depot’s social media fiasco involving a tweet deemed racist.
Within hours of the mishap, the retailer tweeted a condemnation of the original message and announced, “We terminated agency and individual who posted it.”
Wow. Imagine if every advertiser were so brilliantly decisive and brutally unforgiving. In the overwhelming majority of cases where culturally clueless communications have been published, the client takes the heat while the agency gets off scot-free—and remains gainfully employed. Interestingly enough, The Home Depot partners with The Richards Group, the shop that hatched talking vaginas with stereotypical voices. Why, the White agency even won the Latino portion of the account from The Vidal Partnership with an in-house multicultural unit that would likely feel challenged in a faceoff with TVP’s janitorial maintenance crew.
In short, The Home Depot screwed a top minority agency and handed its business to the segregated silo of a White agency—yet now has the audacity to feel outraged over a clumsy tweet. Perfect.
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