15666: Where Are All The Black Insurrectionists?

 

Advertising Age spotlighted a campaign from Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Courageous Conversation Global Foundation that considers the insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol and asks, “What if they were Black?”

 

Imagine if the same question were applied to GS&P. That is, what if Goodby Silverstein & Partners were Black?

 

For starters, they would never have received all the business and professional opportunities that their White privilege has allowed them to enjoy. Why, their most iconic campaign would probably have been for malt liquor.

 

(Bonus points to blog visitors who get the headline for this post—as well as anyone who makes a donation to Courageous Conversation Global Foundation.)

 

 

Campaign Portrays Capitol Insurrectionists As Black One Year After The Riot

 

GS&P’s push for Courageous Conversation Global Foundation uses thought-provoking T-shirts to ask what if last January’s rioters were Black

 

By Brian Bonilla

 

Goodby Silverstein & Partners is launching a campaign on the one-year anniversary of the day that insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol, flipping the script on that polarizing moment in history and posing the question: “What if they were Black?”

 

The campaign, budgeted at less than $50,000, was created on behalf of Courageous Conversation Global Foundation, an organization dedicated to improving racial equity in the country. The campaign is focused on a limited collection of air brush-style memorial shirts, created by artists Timothy Bluitt Jr. and Cassandra Burrell, that reimagine several white rioters present on Jan. 6, 2021 as Black.

 

On the back of each shirt is a different statistic that highlights bias within the justice system, including the fact that Black men are three times more likely to be killed by police, that one-third of unarmed people killed by police are Black and that Black people are five times more likely to be imprisoned.

 

The shirts will debut through a catalog-style Instagram campaign that features them being worn around the Capitol and throughout Washington D.C. The images will encourage people to purchase shirts or hoodies, which retail at $37 and $38 respectively, through a website created for the campaign. A portion of the proceeds will go to the fund.

 

Context clues

 

According to Anthony O’Neill, creative director at GS&P, the goal is to create a conversation with as many people as possible.

 

“When we started working on this thing, no one had been charged,” O’Neill said. “The stats on the back of the shirts really force the point we’re trying to make. We’re not just saying if they were Black they’d be dead. We’re saying even with a routine traffic stop, for example, there are two Americas. I think wherever you were on that day, you probably asked the question in the back of your mind, ‘What if they were Black?’ and hopefully that creates a conversation.”

 

The Black people shown on the clothes don’t share a physical likeness with the rioters that are referenced, but using context clues the audience can discern who they are being compared to.

 

One shirt showcases a Black person dressed as Jacob Chansley, who was one of the main faces of the riot, sporting red, white and blue paint on his face along with a fur hat with horns. In November, Chansley, who called himself the “QAnon Shaman,” was sentenced to 41 months in prison for the role he played in the event.

 

Without mentioning Chansley by name, one of the social media images addresses him. The image includes a statement that reads: “After rioters broke into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, some entered the Senate floor—one of whom, dressed as a Viking, did so while carrying a speared flagpole, which many saw as a weapon. For his actions, he’s been sentenced to only 41 months in prison after pleading guilty on just one felony count—essentially, a slap on the wrist. If he were Black, would he have been shot before he made it to the Capitol steps?”

 

It was important to have the artwork displayed on shirts—some of which are referred to as “RIP shirts”—since it is a typical medium used for mourning in the Black community, said Wes Dorsainvil, associate creative director for GS&P.

 

“The question itself is thought-provoking,” Dorsainvil said. “As a team, we all had that same moment of reflecting on that question and how we communicate our emotions and reactions. The T-shirts just came from discussions about ways that as the Black community, we express a lot of the things we experience through art and language. The T-shirt and the RIP motif came out of a discussion about how do we mourn people who died.”

 

The campaign will also feature a TikTok series titled #IfTheyWereBlackChallenge, in which TikTok creators detail what would have happened if Black people had stormed the Capitol, using the popular heaven background green-screen feature. Additional social content includes a live Twitter Spaces conversation and an Instagram AMA to spark conversation around the question “What if they were Black” and the bias that the world witnessed.

 

This isn’t the first work the agency has created for Courageous Conversation Global Foundation. In February 2020, the agency launched its “Not a Gun” campaign, which was an effort that illustrated the unfair difference in how a white person and Black person could be perceived in an everyday situation, leading to dire life-altering consequences for the latter. On Juneteenth of 2020, the agency launched its “Being Black is Not a Crime” campaign for the group and in July of this year the agency created its “400 Years Flag Half-Staff” campaign dedicated to passing the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act.

15665: New Year’s Resolutions Not Necessarily New, Solutions Or Revolutionary.

 

Advertising Age recorded New Year’s resolutions from a variety of “media, marketers and agency executives”—and a handful of the comments included DE&I navel-gazing. Yet there’s arguably not a single original—or actionable—thought in the bunch. For a field that prides itself on hatching breakthrough ideas and disruptive solutions, racial and ethnic equality continues to be an unsolvable puzzle.

 

Former US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles said, “The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year.”

 

Given the repetitive resolutions that are annually uttered in Adland, it’s safe to say the industry has absolutely failed to realize diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and any other words patronizing poseurs want to add to the acronym.

 

If anything, the alleged leaders demonstrate award-winning creativity via their insincere excuses, diversionary drivel and outright lies. Granted, the awards are ADCOLOR® baubles, scammy Lions, trade organization trophies and assorted photo-op trinkets—but the recipients are still eager to collect undeserved recognition.

 

Of course, there will be no consequences to face for abandoning commitment to resolutions within weeks—just in time for Black History Month.

 

Here’s a sampling of the redundant remarks:

 

Jeri Devard, founder of the Black Executive CMO Alliance

 

“Keep the pedal to the metal on increasing the representation of Black leadership. If you have established goals, make sure that the consequences for non-achievement are consequential. Build out plans for brand prominence in the metaverse.”

 

Sophie Gold, founder and executive producer, Eleanor

 

“First, while I’ve been glad to see the numerous discussions on diversity led by agencies and brands, I believe it’s time we moved past the discussion phase towards more tangible action. Internal meetings and panel discussions are a nice starting point, but the racial disparities in our industry won’t improve until some real capital is put behind their pledges for change. Second, if you look at who is behind the Super Bowl ads this year, it’s mainly the same companies as last year, using the same directors. We all want to make work that is exciting and fresh but to do that we need to hire fresh talent. New voices will lead to fresher, more interesting work while going with what seems like the safe choice will lead to creative stagnation and eventually, creative contraction. Third, I would love to see the industry hire directors for a project based on creativity and talent alone, not because they have a similar ad on their reel. There is a major difference between lack of opportunity and talent. There are plenty of incredible up-and-coming directors, but they aren’t given the chance to show that talent because their previous work doesn’t meet some very specific criteria. Choosing a director should be about ability alone, not a simple matching game. This industry is full of hard working, intelligent, well meaning people, and I know if we can agree to real change, we can make even better work and our industry will be better for it.”

 

Kate Higgins, chief growth officer, Erich and Kallman

 

“What can we do to be better as an industry in 2022? Keep bringing more diversity into advertising. Be more inclusive to the minority groups that are already here by making sure they have equity and feel like they actually belong. I’d like to ask every single person in advertising to take an oath to be more inclusive. Often, we think it’s up to our bosses and agency leaders to fix big problems. Nope. Being more inclusive doesn’t have to mean rolling out an initiative that will cost lots of money and come from the C-suite. All of us as individuals can do something every day to help make a difference. Back in October for National Coming Out Day, I shared three easy, yet very important, actions that every straight person could take be more inclusive for their LGBTQ coworkers. Let’s build on that for the larger DE&I effort. Find one or two things you can do and start. Don’t get hung up worrying about being perfect, just do something. Every day. And if you are lucky enough to be at a company that is willing to do more, I have a suggestion. Start playing the long game and introduce this wonderful world of creativity to a whole audience that has historically not been included or introduced to advertising. Find a local high school or community college that is full of BIPOCs and start a relationship with them. Go meet them and introduce them to advertising, music, film, production, project management, whatever discipline you’re passionate about. The more we can include talent with different experiences and stories, the more our industry will flourish. I can’t wait to see how we do.”

 

Alia Kemet, VP, creative and digital marketing, McCormick & Co.

 

“Brand loyalty sits at the intersection of cultural relevance and data intelligence. Understanding both nuanced and broader cultural cues, while leveraging first party data, social media, search and consumer insights, allows marketers to make significant business impact by forecasting solutions for problems consumers have yet to discover. One of my 2022 resolutions is to use this point of intersection to transform processes and pipelines, while reimagining and enabling how we innovate, to create and deliver products and services people didn’t even know they needed but will love abundantly. If 2021 has taught us anything, it is that all plans need to be built with flexibility. The brands who were most successful understood this. They turned out of stocks into innovation opportunities, potential negative news into overcoming adversity, and budget cuts into scrappy winning moments. Don’t expect 2022 to be any more predictable than the last two years; instead lean into the unexpected because the new growth mindset is achieved through the ability to navigate and triumph in ambiguity. Sometimes the most valuable marketing gems are born from pressure and heat. I resolve to stay ready.”

 

JP Maheu, Twitter VP of U.S. client solutions

 

“Resolution No. 1: I resolve to meaningfully contribute to the industrywide effort to increase the volume of content developed by minority-led and minority-owned publishers. The consumers we all want to reach as marketers and advertisers consist of people with a range of lived experiences and a range of cultures. By increasing the volume of content developed by historically excluded communities, we can help make sure our work better reflects and represents the diversity of our consumer base. Resolution No. 2: I resolve to help the marketing community understand that there are a wide range of communities, interests and passions—gaming, personal finance, music, movies, astrology, makeup, skincare—that people connect to every day on Twitter. We’ll do a better job of making sure marketers see this and see opportunity for themselves in it.”

 

Andréa Mallard, chief marketing officer, Pinterest

 

“There are two things that are top of mind for me. First, inclusion: Advertising is made less impactful because of the relative absence of diverse creative voices. But there are leaders out there working to nurture young, underrepresented talent and helping them get into the industry. So hire agencies like OneBlockVillage in Detroit who are pulling top creatives from a local arts high school (and—I can personally vouch—delivering incredible work and thinking) while also giving these amazing students a taste of (and hopefully passion for) careers in advertising. Second, the metaverse: No marketing leader should sleep on this opportunity. Brands are already being built on the metaverse and innovation is accelerating. My newly licensed teenage son test drove a Hyundai in Roblox. My teenage daughter discovered Marc Jacobs for the first time in Animal Crossing. This is a more participatory rather than passive way to engage with brands and there’s real opportunity here for more creative, innovative, and expansive thinking.”

 

Ashish Prashar, global chief marketing officer at R/GA

 

“As leaders, we must capitalize on what we can control, helping people when it matters. Our industry can harness to help facilitate positive change. I want to help more marketing leaders use their resources to effect social change. We can begin with bringing in people who have been systematically harmed to impact issues oriented around justice or equity at hand. We need to start creating a powerful new narrative, and it’s our responsibility as a creative industry to question what ideas and values we are disseminating. As advertising and marketing leaders, we need to start playing an active role in the right side of history by doing right by society, right by people. Building a more human workforce means accepting individuals for who they are. I believe this is especially needed for formerly incarcerated individuals; our industry needs to hire them more proactively. If Black lives matter, we can’t work for the prison industrial complex or the police. I hope our industry takes a stand to support our colleagues, friends, and neighbors.”

15664: Reviewing 2021 And Envisioning 2022—Oxen And Tigers, Oh My!

 

While 2022 is the Year of the Tiger, 2021 was the Year of the Ox. Among the Chinese zodiac signs, the Ox symbolizes diligence, strength, honesty, down-to-earth persistence and wealth; in contrast, the Tiger symbolizes strength, speed, exorcising evil and bravery.

 

As the transition between symbols occurs from late January to mid-February, it’s time to recognize three industry figures whose actions in the past year reflected the Ox—although they may ultimately become Tigers in the year ahead.

 

 

Hero Group CEO Joe Anthony lobbed a $10 million grenade at DDB Chicago, filing a lawsuit that charged the White advertising agency with fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract and more. The accusations stemmed from Hero Group joining forces with DDB Chicago to win the US Army account. Anthony insisted that DDB reneged on an agreement to award “significant work” to the New York-based Hero Group after the pitch victory. The argument escalated to a Medium perspective, wherein Anthony presented Prime Redlining as follows:

 

Prime Redlining is when the prime applicant or beneficiary of a government contract teams up with a minority firm to apply for or secure a government contract; and after winning the government contract, the prime redlines the minority firm out of the contract by denying or extremely limiting the minority firm from the financial benefit originally established in their teaming agreement or dictated by government compliance requirements.

 

There were no further reports on the progress and/or outcome of the lawsuit. However, Anthony surfaced as a leader in a partnership with Carat, a company within the Dentsu empire.

 

 

Media Mogul Byron Allen launched an offensive by sending letters of intent to brands and White advertising agencies, threatening legal action if the enterprises failed to allocate more money to Black-owned media. In short, Allen was refusing to accept crumbs.

 

Leading a team of Black media moguls, Allen drove a full-page advertisement attacking General Motors Chairman and CEO Mary Barra for declining to meet with them. In the end, Barra, Allen and the group staged a powwow—and General Motors later announced plans to increase spending with Black-owned media.

 

Allen then set his sights on Mickey D’s, filing a whopper $10 billion discrimination lawsuit. Plus, Allen even demanded that McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski be fired for alleged cultural cluelessness on an unrelated incident. A judge initially tossed the lawsuit; however, Allen was allowed to amend the complaint. Stay McTuned.

 

Nathan Young rose to Head of Strategy for Ethos, a new offering from Deloitte Digital designed to help brands build equity, justice and sustainability initiatives. In his professional role, Young may reach greater heights than the 600 & Rising platform that he cofounded in 2020—but don’t expect any accolades from ADCOLOR®.

 

Anthony, Allen and Young represent Oxen and Tigers, displaying courage and conviction to call out systemic inequities—and serving as exorcists to cast out perpetuating evils.

15663: Aunt Jemima Is Coming To Town…

 

 

This 2020 Moscow-Pullman Daily News article reported on the dozens of women hired to portray Aunt Jemima at events over the years.

 

Maurice M. Manring—author of “Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima”—stated, “There were a lot of regional Aunt Jemimas. Quaker Oats up into the 1960s hired women to portray her at county fairs and community events, as well as schools, all across the nation.”

 

Gee, such a missed opportunity for cross-promotions featuring actors portraying Uncle Ben and Rastus.

 

‘Aunt Jemima’ visit to Lewiston fit the times

 

Brand will be discontinued after years of outcry, but 1955 trip was widely celebrated

 

By Joel Mills, for the Daily News

 

LEWISTON — The Aunt Jemima brand will soon be gone, nixed by Quaker Oats over its racist origins. But a record of her visit to Lewiston 65 years ago still exists in the archives of the Lewiston Tribune, a testament to a time when such stereotypes were widely accepted, and even celebrated.

 

The occasion was the joint National Armed Forces Day-Campfire Girls parade down Main Street on May 21, 1955, in support of a fund drive for a new Campfire Girls camp on Lake Coeur d’Alene. Police closed the road to traffic from First to 19th streets. National Guard soldiers marched, bands played, floats paraded, politicians preened and paradegoers were treated to a flyover of military aircraft at 11:10 a.m. on the dot.

 

But the best treat of all, at least for the hungry among the masses, was a free all-day breakfast of hotcakes, eggs, sausage and coffee whipped up by none other than Aunt Jemima herself. Or, to be more precise, one of the dozens of women hired to portray her at various events over the years.

 

A caption in a photo in the May 21 edition of the Tribune identified her as “Mrs. Jessie Stokes of Nebraska,” without specifying whether Jessie was her first name or her husband’s. Regardless, there is nobody with the last name Stokes on lists of the many women who were known to portray Aunt Jemima.

 

Author Maurice M. Manring, who wrote the book “Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima,” said he didn’t recognize Stokes’ name. But he wasn’t surprised.

 

“There were a lot of regional Aunt Jemimas,” Manring told the Tribune. “Quaker Oats up into the 1960s hired women to portray her at county fairs and community events, as well as schools, all across the nation. There are really more than I could reasonably attempt to keep track of, over the years.”

 

The R.T. Davis Milling company hired former slave Nancy Greene to play Aunt Jemima in 1893 when it owned the brand. Lillian Richard, Anna Short Harrington, Edith Wilson and Ethel Ernestine Harper were among the more well-known women to play the role. Manring said Quaker Oats greatly expanded that list with its practice of hiring regionally from one end of the country to the other, with dozens of women playing Aunt Jemima during the advertising boom after World War I.

 

“I get asked about specific women from time to time, but I rarely recognize their names,” he said. “There were a lot of them.”

 

Steven Branting was a first grader at Warner Elementary (now McGhee) when Stokes, in full character, made an appearance at an assembly in the school gym.

 

“We didn’t notice how large she was until she met with us and greeted us, and then you realized how large she was,” Branting recalled. “It really left an impression on me to remember her so distinctly. It was the first black person many of us had ever seen.”

As kids in the 1950s, no one realized that a hurtful stereotype was being perpetuated by the character, he said. But Branting believes his exposure to Aunt Jemima didn’t leave any scars.

 

“I don’t really think it was meant to demean,” he said. “It was never portrayed that way, but I understand why people feel that way. But I was raised in a very inclusive family.”

 

Branting was a Lewiston Orchards kid, so he didn’t make it downtown for the parade or to sample the free breakfast the next day. But according to ads and coverage of the Lewiston parade in the newspaper, Stokes and four assistants cooked and served thousands of breakfasts from a chuck wagon at Sam Alexander’s Lewis-Clark Garage at 108 Main St.

 

The smorgasbord wasn’t just dished up on the Saturday of the parade, but all day Sunday in what must have been a grueling marathon of pancake flipping. But the women who played Aunt Jemima only needed a rudimentary knowledge of cooking to do the job, because the main qualification was fitting a racist “mammy” stereotype.

 

“She had to be able to demonstrate how to make pancakes with the ready mix, so it wasn’t too demanding a culinary feat,” Manring said. “The company wanted women who could fit the image of Aunt Jemima both in appearance and demeanor — more often than not an older, cheerful, often larger woman who would speak in a kind of slave dialect and recount memories of her days on the plantation. They didn’t need professional actors, and I would imagine most of them weren’t.”

 

Manring said he didn’t judge the women who took an opportunity to get a paying job, but thinks the whole system smacked of exploitation. Stokes said the parade and celebration were the most wonderful she had ever worked in coverage in the May 22 Tribune.

 

“The people here are very enthusiastic and the weather was wonderful,” she said.

 

St. Joseph, Mo., newspaperman Chris L. Rutt appropriated the original Aunt Jemima image and name in 1889 from racist minstrel and vaudeville shows as a way to market a new pancake mix developed at a flour mill he bought with his friend Charles G. Underwood.

 

The Quaker Oats Company bought Aunt Jemima Mills in 1926 and turned it into one of the longest-running and most recognizable brands in American advertising history. The company attempted to update the brand over the years with more progressive depictions of the character, but it admitted earlier this month that its origins were deeply tied to slavery and racism and finally agreed with decades-old calls to pull the plug. Cornell University Africana Studies professor Riché Richardson wrote about those racist origins for the New York Times in 2015 in a call to retire the brand.

 

“This Aunt Jemima logo was an outgrowth of Old South plantation nostalgia and romance grounded in an idea about the ‘mammy,’ a devoted and submissive servant who eagerly nurtured the children of her white master and mistress while neglecting her own,” Richardson wrote. “Visually, the plantation myth portrayed her as an asexual, plump black woman wearing a headscarf.”

 

The company was ultimately unable to ignore calls to retire the Aunt Jemima name after the country was swept by outrage over the killing of 46-year-old George Floyd by Minneapolis police last month and subsequent protests over the mistreatment of black Americans throughout U.S. history.

15662: Mercedes-Benz Beauty Standards Car Wreck.

 

The New York Post reported on a video advertisement for Mercedes-Benz that was pulled off the road when Chinese social media took offense, complaining that the campaign pushed “Western beauty ideals for Asian women” and portrayed stereotypical “slanted eyes.” Cultural cluelessness from Germany…? Shocking.

 

Mercedes-Benz removes ad with Chinese model over ‘slanted eye’ backlash

 

By Hannah Sparks

 

Chinese social media has been engrossed in an eye-popping debate over ads depicting alleged Western beauty ideals for Asian women, including the usage of makeup to create stereotypical “slanted eyes.”

 

Mercedes-Benz has reportedly removed a recent video advertisement published on Chinese social network Weibo on Dec. 25, after the brand was criticized for doing up a model’s face to give her exaggerated sloping eyes.

 

“Is there any beauty in this makeup?” one critic wrote. “It is not [open for] interpretation. No Chinese will think this kind of ‘beauty’ is attractive,” another added.

 

The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Times said on Tuesday that the hashtag that translates to “Mercedes-Benz model’s makeup is controversial” had gained over 170 million views on Weibo.

 

“The premise is that Chinese cannot let the West shape our aesthetics,” wrote one critic, per Global Times. “For those malicious slanderers, we should maintain sufficient vigilance and counter-attack.”

 

The Post has reached out to Mercedes-Benz to confirm reports.

 

The luxury carmaker is one of the latest in a spate of controversies to take over Chinese social media, as critics lash out against Western brands for promoting Chinese beauty stereotypes in their ads. Earlier this week, Gucci was similarly called out for a new handbag ad that uses “discriminatory” Chinese features.

 

Communication-law professor Zhu Wei, of the state’s China University of Political Science and Law, said in a statement to the Global Times regarding Gucci’s ad, “This is extremely disrespectful to our culture. The disgust and revulsion expressed by the whole society toward this kind of insult should be heard.”

 

Fellow couturier Dior apologized in November following uproar over a handbag advertisement. Beijing-based photographer Chen Man admitted his “immaturity and ignorance” by “perpetuating racial stereotypes” for the shoot, while the fashion house responded by saying that it “respects the feelings of the Chinese people.”

 

It’s not just the upmarket brands who are said to be out of touch. Last week, a model for Chinese snack brand Three Squirrels stood up against the brand’s detractors, asking, “Am I not Chinese?” Consumers had bristled over an unearthed ad campaign from 2019 featuring model Cai Niang Niang, who some said was played up in the ad for her “overly slanted eyes” and posed with her hair in braids, all of which plays into 19th-century Western stereotypes of Chinese people.

 

She wrote on Weibo on Sunday, according to the South China Morning Post, “With small eyes, am I not Chinese? I totally agree with patriotism. However, creating big problems out of normal matters has become a morbid obsession. I hope everybody can have a healthy mindset.”

15661: Happy New Year!

 

2022—Year of the Black Tiger…?