A rare sighting in the advertising world becomes more common
Banana Republic has dared to go where only Benetton, and now eHarmony have gone before in the U.S. advertising market: Black women in interracial relationships. In the past, other interracial pairings seem to have been more commonplace (read: acceptable) to advertisers. Below are a couple of recent ads:
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How about a white woman with a black man? Or Asians and Hispanics with whites? Wonder what’s driving these specific choices. (My partner is Hispanic.)
Sure, all types of interracial couples are relatively rare in advertising (with the exception of Benetton ads). Even more rare are those that only involve minorities (like Asian-Hispanic, Black-Hispanic, Asian-Black couples).
In the piece above, I linked to two ads which featured Asian-White couples (one from 2006, one from 2008) –but I only found commericals, not print ads.
Finding a White-Hispanic couple in advertising is a whole different situation because Hispanics can appear to be of any ethnicity. A White-Hispanic couple could easily appear to be a White couple, a White-Black couple, or a White-Asian couple. I could only think of one ad that fit the bill for a White-Hispanic couple, and then couldn’t find the commercial online.
I’ll post more of these ads as I find them.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Fred and Edith Zuber and Steve Browning. Steve Browning said: Jessica Faye Carter – Hyphenated – A rare sighting in the … http://bit.ly/UeTXx [...]
GQ Magazine was running b&w inter-racial adverts and photo shoots back in the ’90s. The ascendancy of models Iman and Naomi Campbell helped propel these images, though it’s telling that neither of these models was American.
Now the tabloids are atwitter with the possibility that singers Justin Timberlake and Rihanna may be dating. This, along with Halle Berry’s relationship with the Canadian model, Gabriel Aubry, have given visibility to b&w couplings, which are not so rare as many Americans would suspect.
However, it is Black man/Caucasian woman couples (like Seal and Heidi Klum) that provoke the strongest reactions, and I have seen few of these relationships ever hinted at by Madison Avenue tastemakers. Also, I think there are regional differences, too, as NYers and Angelenos tend to be more travelled and cosmopolitan than the rest of their American peers.