I am writing on behalf of the Committee on Racial Content on Canadian Television (CRCT), a committee that monitors the projection of ethnic minorities' images on Canadian television and in other Canadian telecommunications.
McCain Foods of Florenceville, New Brunswick, Canada runs a Television Ad on its International Pizza that is demeaning and affronting to both African Canadian and American consumers of their products. The product in question is McCain's International Pizza. The product can be found at the following link:
http://www.mccain.ca/ under products. Once to click this link you will have to click back on your diver to resume reading this report.
THE MC CAIN FOODS INTERNATIONAL PIZZA AD BEGINS AS FOLLOWS:
A slim blonde, White Canadian woman appears on your television screen; she ponders over whether to buy or not to buy McCain’s International pizzas. Suddenly she is surrounded by a number of handsome white male suitors from around the world. Up to this point not a bad idea of a commercial message. From here the Mc Cain Foods International Pizza Ad goes all the way downhill.
We cut away to a larger Black Canadian woman (above left) who apparently sees the white Canadian woman in the first part of the Ad surrounded by various White men, who are Parisian, Canadian, Sicilian, Greek or Texan, among others, taking an interest in her. Every woman, including the Black woman, wants this kind of attention, right?
As a result the Black woman rushes with her grocery cart to the freezer to fill the cart McCain Foods International Pizza. There is supposed to be humor in this Ad, but the CRCT does not find this humorous at all.
It is the portrayal of the black women's image we find totally disagreeable. Mc Cain Foods Ad producers are entirely capable of portraying a Black woman in a positive, and gracious manner, if they want to do it. Has anyone seen an Ad from the producers of Mc Cain Foods Ads that presents Black people in a positive light and which has also been aired as a commercial intended for general Canadian audiences? Please make this Ad available if there is one.
The CRCT would like to hear from Mc Cain Foods, a successful Canadian company of which we are proud, before we forward this Ad to be reviewed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CTRC). I am pleased to report that last night, meaning Wednesday, May 9, 2007, after a CRCT email was sent to Mc Cain Foods, the television Ad in question was substantially changed when it aired at about 6:45 pm during the CTV News, following Live at 5. To the credit of McCain Foods they did modified the Ad, but it should not have been approved in the first place.
I trust that we'll hear from McCain as soon as possible; we also still want the Ad in question cancelled. We also have suggestions as to how McCain Foods can, in the future, demonstrate its fairness to our ethnic minority consumers.
UPDATE:
Tonight, Thursday, May 10, 2007 between 7:30 and 8:00 PM AST the ad: McCain Foods International Pizza, aired twice during CTV's Jeopardy Show despite the email from the CRCT requesting the ad be cancelled due to its hateful depiction of the Black and the White women in the ad, as one of the blog’s comments below aptly points out. I think McCain Foods is enjoying a notoriety it has never had before. I think that McCain Foods has decided the bad publicity is better than no publicity, a strategy that may well backfire on them. Now, it is up to us to show what we can do.
CRCT.
Please report to the CRCT any item on television in any form that you as a consumer consider questionable as regards taste and/or that you consider profiles your group in an unbecoming light.
To view comments to this blog posting click "Links to this Post" below
9 comments:
This is deplorable.
Sam
I agree with you Frank and how do we contact Mc Cain Foods to boycott all of their products until the black woman is taken off these ads, this is very, very deameaning for us BLACK WOMAN and by the way not all of us are desperate black woman.
Sharon
Frank, this is very terrible, we have too get that ad off the air!
In my opinion, the ad is deplorable and demeaning not just to black women but to everyone.
And so are almost all of McCain's tv ads. Over the past few years I've cringed whenever a McCain's' ad comes on. They are invariably mean-spirited. I know they are trying to be "cute" but they come off as cynical - almost misanthropic. They leave a bad taste in one's mouth.
How ironic, considering that they are selling "food" products. Most of the products these ads are promoting are, in a sense, cynical and mean: generally junk food.
McCain's: get a new ad agency! Get some new product lines. Ditch the junk - get with the program. Use your money to do something decent in the world.
Bill Niven
Halifax
You are right - we are always shown in a negative light, never positive.
Thank you Frank - you and Susan have done a wonderful thing for all of us.
Muriel
Obviously McCain paused for reflection when it changed the ad material. In the second version aired last night the White woman and the “International Men” were omitted. Now this evening the ad is back on in its original format. I find the portrayal black women, in this manner stereotypical and demeaning. McCain pays millions of dollars to ad agencies so why can’t they come up with entertaining and wholesome ads to sell its products. I can only assume that McCain is content with cheap shots and it makes me wonder if they feel the same way about the quality of their products.
Susan
McCain Foods is an International Corporation with interests all over the world. Shame on you for being so politically incorrect, I demand that you change the tenor of your ads now or risk losing business. No longer will demeaning stereotypes be tolerated.
Susan
I thought the ad was humourous. Lighten up. I worry about the depictions on the the six o'clock news.
Brad
Post a Comment