Advertising Age spotlighted a new Cheerios commercial featuring another mixed-race kid. However, this spot doesn’t include a Dad, so it’s hard to determine the real point of the casting. According to Ad Age, it might be a nod to Mom feeding her son a variety of flavors. If so, someone at Saatchi & Saatchi New York should be beaten with a variety of sticks. The “concept” is forced and offensive. Besides, for Mom to be stuffing her kid with a range of breakfast cereals borders on child abuse. And the commercial borders beyond viewer abuse.
Cheerios and their ad agency really tapped into something special, didn't they? They figured out you can put some brown people in an ad without using any brown people behind the scenes. Total win-win. Ad world gets to do business exactly as usual, contributing nothing to the racial community, skirting around hiring anyone ethnic (other than actors, of course) and taking, taking, taking.
ReplyDeleteExpect this to win an Adcolor Award.