Overthinking is overrated

Advertising can say a lot about a company, as it shows how the company wants to be portrayed.

Consequently, the importance of inclusiveness in advertising campaigns cannot be overstated.

Case in point — Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl advertisement celebrating diversity in the United States was a touching and beautiful work of art, set to be remembered as one of the truly amazing Super Bowl ads, right there with Apple’s 1984 Macintosh spot.

However, the unmatched brilliance of this ad has been the target of a lot of criticism. These detractors believe everyone should learn how to speak English and the GLBTQ community should stay out of the media. These critics should have been mollified by another advertisement that night.

Jaguar ran a 60-second ad entitled “British Villains,” directed by Academy Award winner Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”) and starred Ben Kingsley (“Iron Man 3”), Mark Strong (“Sherlock Holmes”) and Tom Hiddleston (“The Avengers”).

For the ad, the three men dress and act as the epitome of class and grace, which are hallmarks of a classic Holwood antagonist. In the ad, Strong flies in on a private jet, Hiddleston arrives in a helicopter and Kingsley dresses himself in a tuxedo.

As Jaguar is a British brand, it would make sense for them to advertise with men of such high stature. But this opens the brand up to charges of racism.

The answer lies in the underlying premise of the car that the advertisement promotes.

Jaguar has always been a premium brand that has to distinguish itself amongst several competitors such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Lexus. Because of its British pedigree, associating itself with such well-known actors would seem like a wise move.

The problem lies with the chosen actors, who are all white males.
One can only conclude that since Jaguar seeks to identify its product as exclusive, it has used the most exclusive group of people possible to serve as ambassadors of the brand.

This means Jaguar seeks to identify exclusivity with being a white man of Western European descent.

We have come so far from the idea that small cliques of the oppressors are the go-to group for depicting high class. Look no further than Rolex’s endorsement deal with professional golfer Tiger Woods. After all the progress the U.S. has made, the idea that such an ad would still be socially acceptable boggles the mind.

Apart from the one woman who served as Mark Strong’s assistant, no other minorities were represented in the 60-second ad.  

The days of only white people appearing in advertisements are dead.

In light of this travesty, the Federal Communications Commission should mandate minorities get their representative share of airtime in order to truly represent the new U.S. Only then will we rid ourselves of the scourge that is white privilege in this nation.

Alternatively, one could avoid overthinking it and interpret both commercials as really cool.

­— mjsu@indiana.edu