This reminds me of a few years back when I was writing children’s books. I was forever hearing that girl characters (let alone ethnic characters) were under-represented in children’s books. On closer inspection, the “evidence” invariably consisted of an analysis of books from the 20th century in one market only.
What amuses me was that characters such as “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” are female by default in Germany, where I live (die Raupe).
Incidentally, it’s a rare thing these days to find a literary agent in children’s books who’s not female - and if you do, they’re more likely to be “diverse” than male.
Thanks Sue – yes, I think these things play out in a similar way in the literary and art world. Sensitivity readers aren't exactly a sign of a vital, vigorous culture.
Thanks for braving the advertising over-diversity subject. It's been an obvious source of incredulity for viewers, yet no one company can dare to ignore it for fear of being pilloried online.
It's not just the challenge of showing diversity in one ad with a limited cast - it's compounded in an ad break when each successive ad shows the same ironically undiverse set of multiracial, multigendered, multi-everythinged families and friends. This undermines any attempt of the ads to belong to the same world that its consumers live in. Armando Iannucci's David Copperfield succeeded brilliantly with a colour-blind cast, because they were all wonderful actors who brought Dickens' characters to life. In corporate ads the cast are just personas - representatives rather than people.
I sympathise with advertisers - I'm not sure how they get out of the casting hole they've dug themselves into now. But I agree that they should move away from trying to project moral purity, and perhaps focus on telling us why their products are better?
(And I love the Tommy's ad - not sure I'd ever have seen it otherwise.)
Thanks Rupert – yeah, I have *some* sympathy with the agencies involved. Feels like a collective action problem where a lot of good intentions lead to obviously skewed results. But then the only people who point it out are the 'anti-wokists' and then the agencies double-down on what they see as moral leadership. Meanwhile, the public looks on wearily.
Sadly we have no equivalent of Jon Stewart here to skewer hypocrisy even when it comes from the liberal viewpoint. Though the retreat from DEI orthodoxy in the US may have ripple effects.
The left - and the centrists 🙋♂️- are sure that Trump will cause chaos and end in failure, but no-one seems to be preparing for what might happen if the US prospers under him. I despise the man, but he takes delight in slaughtering sacred cows, and that might not be a bad thing as far as regulations that are holding back building and growth are concerned.
If the US prospers under an "anti-woke" banner, then right-wing politicians in the UK/EU are likely to prosper, too - and DEI policies and marketing may be pushed well to the back by emboldened business.
This was awesome and you are brave! It’s seriously difficult territory. I think the only way out of the eddy is to somehow communicate a deep affinity for the values of diversity and “wokiness” while winking or nodding to the meta fact that this strategy isn’t really getting us that much closer to living in that beautiful world (see US election 2024). Someone who could pull that off would be really onto something, I think.
That still seems a bit performative to me... To thine own self be true etc. (yes, I know Polonius is a pompous bore, but it does seem good advice). Companies should be honest about what they are: machines for producing stuff we might want/find useful.
haha that would actually be even way better. I totally agree with you. I think I was applying human logic to something that isn't actually human. OMG if someone made an ad that was like "we really want to sell you this stuff b/c we tried to make it good and we want to stay in business and feed our families" i would probably buy it.
So this line: "We know mixed-race couples exist and we’re absolutely cool with it, but it just feels like we see A LOT of them on TV—roughly 8 in the 22 ads featured above."
8 out 22 is by my maths about 36%? It is *a lot* if you go roughly by the ONS stats on mixed-relationship households (my calcs on the last available data from 2018 suggests 9% of households are mixed ethnicities).
But it's not a lot if you are in one of those households. And you haven't seen them represented in ads for the majority of time you've been in said household.
I would suggest a better way of thinking about it is that what you're mostly describing is a period of (perfectly understandable) over-correction, making up for periods of previous absences.
And you are supposing this over-correction is a state of affairs that will last. Lots of us who have been trying to push the boulder of representation up the hill (sorry, horrible metaphor I know), will be very aware of the fact that, more often than not, things have a tendency to slip back to a status quo.
Perhaps it should. Does this debate end if mixed-race couple representation tops out at 2 out of 22 ads – 9% – in future years? Do we get better ads if we stick more closely to what life outside of London looks like? I get that we get a more *comfortable* adland. I'm not sure we get a *better* adland.
It’s not 8 out of 22 couples, but 8 out of 22 ads, most of which don’t have couples at all. I think I make it 14 discernible couples in total – 8 mixed-race, 3 white (Tesco, Morrisons, Tk Maxx), 3 possible all-black (JD, M&S Clothing, Tesco?). Obviously it’s crude to bring this all down to a numbers game, but it's very different to what you outline above.
I also don't think any of it has to do with 'comfortable', except in the sense that adland seems very comfortable where it is right now – claiming the moral high ground and casting anyone who questions it as somehow problematic.
OK, I type corrected on the figures. And OK, adland claims a moral high ground, fine, in some places it does – adland over claiming is hardly a new sin.
So then: what *does* better start to look like for you? I get that it's hard, as you acknowledge. But say, in year's time you repeat the exercise – what might you hope to see that's different from this year?
A: 'back to the status quo' (which I guess means all white people, which hasn't been the status quo for as long as I've been around)
B: pulling back from the 'overcorrection' that is driven by progressive adland egos at the expense of the minorities they claim to help (because it just fuels culture war froth around stuff that doesn't need it)
and C: carrying on with 'we must double-down on this agenda!'
I can't name a number any more than you can, but it's a cultural shift that I think is obviously overdue. Next year, I'd like to see b), fear we'll be more like a) and don't think there's even a small chance we'll be at c.
And I should be clear that b) is the most progressive direction in my book – the sign of more progress made, not less!
I can't name a number any more than you can, but it's a cultural shift that I think is obviously overdue. Next year, I'd like to see B, fear we'll be more like C and don't think there's even a small chance we'll be at A.
This reminds me of a few years back when I was writing children’s books. I was forever hearing that girl characters (let alone ethnic characters) were under-represented in children’s books. On closer inspection, the “evidence” invariably consisted of an analysis of books from the 20th century in one market only.
What amuses me was that characters such as “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” are female by default in Germany, where I live (die Raupe).
Incidentally, it’s a rare thing these days to find a literary agent in children’s books who’s not female - and if you do, they’re more likely to be “diverse” than male.
Thanks Sue – yes, I think these things play out in a similar way in the literary and art world. Sensitivity readers aren't exactly a sign of a vital, vigorous culture.
Thanks for braving the advertising over-diversity subject. It's been an obvious source of incredulity for viewers, yet no one company can dare to ignore it for fear of being pilloried online.
It's not just the challenge of showing diversity in one ad with a limited cast - it's compounded in an ad break when each successive ad shows the same ironically undiverse set of multiracial, multigendered, multi-everythinged families and friends. This undermines any attempt of the ads to belong to the same world that its consumers live in. Armando Iannucci's David Copperfield succeeded brilliantly with a colour-blind cast, because they were all wonderful actors who brought Dickens' characters to life. In corporate ads the cast are just personas - representatives rather than people.
I sympathise with advertisers - I'm not sure how they get out of the casting hole they've dug themselves into now. But I agree that they should move away from trying to project moral purity, and perhaps focus on telling us why their products are better?
(And I love the Tommy's ad - not sure I'd ever have seen it otherwise.)
Thanks Rupert – yeah, I have *some* sympathy with the agencies involved. Feels like a collective action problem where a lot of good intentions lead to obviously skewed results. But then the only people who point it out are the 'anti-wokists' and then the agencies double-down on what they see as moral leadership. Meanwhile, the public looks on wearily.
Sadly we have no equivalent of Jon Stewart here to skewer hypocrisy even when it comes from the liberal viewpoint. Though the retreat from DEI orthodoxy in the US may have ripple effects.
The left - and the centrists 🙋♂️- are sure that Trump will cause chaos and end in failure, but no-one seems to be preparing for what might happen if the US prospers under him. I despise the man, but he takes delight in slaughtering sacred cows, and that might not be a bad thing as far as regulations that are holding back building and growth are concerned.
If the US prospers under an "anti-woke" banner, then right-wing politicians in the UK/EU are likely to prosper, too - and DEI policies and marketing may be pushed well to the back by emboldened business.
This was awesome and you are brave! It’s seriously difficult territory. I think the only way out of the eddy is to somehow communicate a deep affinity for the values of diversity and “wokiness” while winking or nodding to the meta fact that this strategy isn’t really getting us that much closer to living in that beautiful world (see US election 2024). Someone who could pull that off would be really onto something, I think.
That still seems a bit performative to me... To thine own self be true etc. (yes, I know Polonius is a pompous bore, but it does seem good advice). Companies should be honest about what they are: machines for producing stuff we might want/find useful.
haha that would actually be even way better. I totally agree with you. I think I was applying human logic to something that isn't actually human. OMG if someone made an ad that was like "we really want to sell you this stuff b/c we tried to make it good and we want to stay in business and feed our families" i would probably buy it.
So this line: "We know mixed-race couples exist and we’re absolutely cool with it, but it just feels like we see A LOT of them on TV—roughly 8 in the 22 ads featured above."
8 out 22 is by my maths about 36%? It is *a lot* if you go roughly by the ONS stats on mixed-relationship households (my calcs on the last available data from 2018 suggests 9% of households are mixed ethnicities).
But it's not a lot if you are in one of those households. And you haven't seen them represented in ads for the majority of time you've been in said household.
I would suggest a better way of thinking about it is that what you're mostly describing is a period of (perfectly understandable) over-correction, making up for periods of previous absences.
And you are supposing this over-correction is a state of affairs that will last. Lots of us who have been trying to push the boulder of representation up the hill (sorry, horrible metaphor I know), will be very aware of the fact that, more often than not, things have a tendency to slip back to a status quo.
Perhaps it should. Does this debate end if mixed-race couple representation tops out at 2 out of 22 ads – 9% – in future years? Do we get better ads if we stick more closely to what life outside of London looks like? I get that we get a more *comfortable* adland. I'm not sure we get a *better* adland.
It’s not 8 out of 22 couples, but 8 out of 22 ads, most of which don’t have couples at all. I think I make it 14 discernible couples in total – 8 mixed-race, 3 white (Tesco, Morrisons, Tk Maxx), 3 possible all-black (JD, M&S Clothing, Tesco?). Obviously it’s crude to bring this all down to a numbers game, but it's very different to what you outline above.
I also don't think any of it has to do with 'comfortable', except in the sense that adland seems very comfortable where it is right now – claiming the moral high ground and casting anyone who questions it as somehow problematic.
OK, I type corrected on the figures. And OK, adland claims a moral high ground, fine, in some places it does – adland over claiming is hardly a new sin.
So then: what *does* better start to look like for you? I get that it's hard, as you acknowledge. But say, in year's time you repeat the exercise – what might you hope to see that's different from this year?
I think there's a huge space between:
A: 'back to the status quo' (which I guess means all white people, which hasn't been the status quo for as long as I've been around)
B: pulling back from the 'overcorrection' that is driven by progressive adland egos at the expense of the minorities they claim to help (because it just fuels culture war froth around stuff that doesn't need it)
and C: carrying on with 'we must double-down on this agenda!'
I can't name a number any more than you can, but it's a cultural shift that I think is obviously overdue. Next year, I'd like to see b), fear we'll be more like a) and don't think there's even a small chance we'll be at c.
And I should be clear that b) is the most progressive direction in my book – the sign of more progress made, not less!
Got my A and C mixed up here! – meant to read:
I can't name a number any more than you can, but it's a cultural shift that I think is obviously overdue. Next year, I'd like to see B, fear we'll be more like C and don't think there's even a small chance we'll be at A.
I'm not sure why gingers are treated as diverse but I'm here for it.