Even in the 21st century, there is still present racism in advertising. One of the advertising campaigns with racist allusions is the Heineken’s with the tagline “Sometimes Lighter Is Better.”
(Business Insider, 2018)
One of the advertisements shows a barman sliding a Heineken Light beer to a woman because she looks dissatisfied with her glass of wine. Then the beer passes some other people around the bar that are dark-skinned. At the end, the beer gets to the woman, and she has got noticeably lighter skin than the people showed before in the ad.
(Marry Berry, 2018)
The Heineken’s campaign promoting their light beer began running in Europe during summer 2017. In that time, there was no backlash. But then, the campaign started in the U.S. and the whole situation changed. Probably the huge impact had a rapper’s tweet that hit more than 7 million followers and marked the ad as “terribly racist,” (Schultz, 2018). The advertising campaign itself did not pay as much attention as the rapper’s tweet. The result of many other following public complaints was that the Heineken pull off the advertising. Of course, Heineken apologized in order to reduce the brand damage and save the Heineken’s reputation among African American drinkers.
(Business Insider, 2018)
The advertising campaign was created by Publicis Groupe, one of the largest communication groups in the world. The marketer explained that they feel the ad was linked to their Light Heineken beer, but at the same time, they are appreciating the feedback and they will take into account it in the future campaigns.
The rapper accused some companies that they are “purposely putting out noticeably racist ads so they can get more views,” (Schultz, 2018). There also different kind of followers’ reactions on the tweet. One of them saying it is racist only if you take “Light is better” out of the context of the whole commercial story. Another follower agreed on the fact that there are some subliminal messages that might harm and that only the marketing team knows if it was intentional or not.
Reference:
Business Insider. (2018, March 26). Heineken Light is under fire for an ad campaign some are calling “terribly racist.”. [digital image]. Retrieved from https://static.businessinsider.com/image/5ab93d34821646d8378b4714.jpg?_ga=2.13326455.1314970346.1575220075-1774025660.1575220075
Business Insider. (2018, March 26). Twitter Chance The Rapper. [digital image]. Retrieved from https://static.businessinsider.com/image/5ab93ed271d3a51b008b4b11.jpg?_ga=2.13326455.1314970346.1575220075-1774025660.1575220075
Marry Berry. (2018, March 26). Heineken 2018 'Lighter is better' advert. Racist?.[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_u_-OD1_z0
Schultz, E.J. (2018, March 27). How Did This Happen? Behind Heineken Light's "Lighter Is Better" Ad Mistake. Retrieved from https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/heineken-light-s-lighter-ad-mistake/312887
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