Comment by Theodores | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Theodores | Hacker News Reader

I watch TV and I believe that the ethnic mix of people on TV (in the UK) is fairly representative of the mix you would find on the train going in and out of London.

I look at marketing material prepared with stock images and fashion catalogues. What do I see? Lots of white faces. Maybe there is a picture in there somewhere of some black girl playing with young Tarquin (who is obviously white). The word 'tokenism' springs to mind.

I don't believe most people care less about what colour people are, however, if you use a lot of stock photography, step back, look at the body of your work and wonder why all the faces are white. It happens. Sometimes all the images that are supplied are of white people, yet you may not notice this until, for some random reason, you get a person of colour showing up. Then the '98% white' trend is revealed.

The thing is that not everyone wants to be white. People might want to be young, thin, beautiful, with a full head of well groomed hair - that is aspirational. So you can keep the old, fat and ugly people out of the marketing material - that is fine. But to consciously or otherwise end up with only white faces is where TV was more than a generation ago. We should have moved on, perhaps even more so than TV as the internets is global rather than parochial.

The main issue is simply availability in stock photos. The young white hipsters taking stock photos of their friends simply don't have that many non-white friends.

I month or so ago, I met a guy who designs the "Opulent 3BHK now available, 1-3 crore" billboards. For those unfamiliar with Indian advertising, such billboards will typically feature a photo of a white lady doing yoga or perhaps in an evening gown. Perhaps a man will be present, admiring her. The actual apartment being advertised is rarely displayed [1].

I asked him why this is the case. The answer is simply availability of photos - shutterstock just doesn't have Indian yoga ladies/dinner party ladies/etc. Of the ones you do find, most are aesthetically unsuitable.

Here is shutterstock: http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?searchterm=yoga+woman&...

Maybe 2 black women, one or two more of questionable ethnicity, and a bunch of white chicks. Searching for "yoga woman indian" gets you a few results, but not exactly a wide selection. A search for "yoga woman desi" gets spelling-corrected to "yoga woman desk".

[1] Most of them are generic unappealing post-Le Corbusier concrete block structures. Think council housing (UK) or housing projects (US). On the rare occasion that the apartments actually have a moderately appealing appearance, you get to see a picture: http://www.phoenixfountainhead.com/

In the case of race, I don't think it's mostly about aspirational choices-- it's about who audiences relate to. There are some pretty good studies that show you inherently trust people more if they look like you (skin color, hair color, style, etc). Makes sense, right?

Now pretend you're in charge of marketing for a company to folks in the US. Pretend your product is aimed at middle-class and up (which a lot of products are-- especially the ones we at HN interact with). What skin color do you choose? If you want your marketing to perform, the faces you use should reflect pie chart of your prospective buyers. For reference, Asians, African Americans, and Hispanics each make up 5-7% of the top quintile in terms of wealth. Whites make up 80%.

I want to see this change, but the change isn't going to come from marketing departments.

I don't see why young faces everywhere is all right. Racism is horrible, and so is ageism.

Nobody is physically young forever and you can't help that - being young is definitely not aspirational (and neither is a head full of hair, by the way). You can't work hard and "earn" your youth, or "earn" your hair. Physical fitness is another thing though, and a person doesn't have to look young in order to look healthy and attractive.

I don't understand the outcry at "ageism" in advertising. The point of advertising is to address your target audience, not everyone.

The vast majority of products simply do not cater to every demographic. Racism might at least be reasonably considered inappropriate unless you're marketing a product that specifically targets some races and not others, but ageism? It's highly likely that whatever it is you're advertising does have a well-defined audience in terms of age.

This is just another rung on the political correctness ladder. Expecting everyone to include every possible demographic in every conceivable advertising campaign is idiotic.

Making it about "what people want to be" (from GP) misses the point as well. If you're not aiming your advertising at your target demographics, you are failing either yourself or your client. That's not discrimination; it's business. Discrimination is "you're not pretty, you don't get a discount or aren't allowed to use this service."

If it's just about target audience, then I wonder why all these companies seem to target detergents / toothpaste / toilet paper exclusively to 25 year olds...

Just going from my understanding, which could be wrong... Many people find a household goods brand they like and stick with it. For example, once you decide that Crest toothpaste is good enough for you, you'll likely continue buying it for many years without ever thinking twice about it.

So it makes sense for these household goods brands to target young adults, to become their "go-to" choice for decades to come.

I'm 36 and I've already decided on my brand of toothpaste, toilet paper detergents years ago. I will not buy another brand as long as these brand exists with the same price and quality level. I would be a very bad target for advertising.

In addition to the habit-forming age (if cigarette users are aged 16-60, rational advertising would target 16, not 60), a point is that you don't show your target audience as they are, but you show your target audience as they wish to be.

If you target average 65 year old women, then you show gray-haired above-average-health 55-year women.

If you target average 45 year old men, then you show slim (but not too slim) fit (but not too fit) 38 year old men - that might plausibly be average 45 year old men, but are very much skewed towards the idealized goal.

If you target very overweight people, then you show people that are visibly overweight, but particularly good looking for that weight.

That's what works best, that's how homo sapiens are most receptive to be influenced.

Being young very much is aspirational. The fact that you can't do something has no bearing on whether you wish you could (and let's also look at hair transplants and face lifts while we're at it).

Hm. Racial and gender diversity good, but old, fat, and ugly (whatever that means) people bad. OK.

Like any other element used in well-designed communication, the stock photography choice should be appropriate. If you live in Japan for any serious length of time, you might start to yearn for more handsome white guys in your ads. (Plus what's this stuff about old, fat, and ugly? That's kind of a weird one to see in a post here.)

I live in Shanghai -- there are plenty of ads using Asian models, but (to my mind) a weirdly high number using white models.

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