Racist Microsoft. 
Polish Microsoft Ad Photoshops out Black Person
- Thread starter Danoz
- Start date
Well, there we go. Thanks for the info.
Maybe they should have shelled out for a Polish photographer to take a picture of some Polish people for the Polish ad.
Around 2% of the population, no doubt possessing well under 1% of total discretionary income that all those advertisers are interested in. There are far more asians in Australia than aborigines. That said, they do crop up in advertisements from time to time, I was thinking of "black" in the Afro-Euro-American sense.
??
The Aboriginal population is that small?? I always thought they were a huge ethnic group in Australia...?
Ummm....Aborigines?
Around 2% of the population, no doubt possessing well under 1% of total discretionary income that all those advertisers are interested in. There are far more asians in Australia than aborigines. That said, they do crop up in advertisements from time to time, I was thinking of "black" in the Afro-Euro-American sense.
??
The Aboriginal population is that small?? I always thought they were a huge ethnic group in Australia...?
According to TOW they are 2.6% of the population--a little over half a million.
Exactly. I suppose they didn't anticipate that it would be noticed by Americans or Brits who might find it insulting. And I can't imagine why. I thought they knew about teh internets.
According to the comments by actual Poles at that link, apparently, yeah.
http://www.11points.com/Misc/11_Photos_Where_Black_People_Were_Awkwardly_Photoshopped_In_or_Out
It happens quite often.
It happens quite often.
R
Rocketman
Guest
Exactly. I suppose they didn't anticipate that it would be noticed by Americans or Brits who might find it insulting. And I can't imagine why. I thought they knew about teh internets.
See, if you're running a campaign in a large country, and your ad is going to be noticed by millions of people with serious disposable income, you can do that. The rest of the world gets refried American advertising.
You know, reshooting the photograph would've been just as "racist", except that nobody would ever have known of their decision to censor out the black person. But that would've been better, because it wouldn't have offended Americans and Brits.
Corporations and organizations do this all the time. They'll pop gender/ethnicity/props/etc in and out of their images to fit whatever they believe the regional demographic wants to see. A lot of times they'll just shuffle models around on the original shoot; more often though they'd rather pay a retoucher after the fact to scramble the image. This particular company only got caught because of an exceptionally poor photoshop job. I'm not quite sure why this is so shocking to most people.
Yeah I saw this a couple of days account via a tweet from someone I follow.
What I thought was kind of weird is they only photoshopped the face... not the hand.
If anything I've learned from countless Jay Leno Monday Headlines newspaper clippings and magazine pictures, often these "genius" Photoshoppers will leave extra hands, inexplicable third legs, and stuff like that.
I'm surprised they just didn't Photoshop Polish heads onto all them.
It's not racist; it's just bad photoshopping and decsion making. It was marketed towards a specific country with a specific demographic. Poland is mostly white with asiatic minorities. I'm sure there are other ethnicities but since they're not likely to be the target of Microsoft's advertising why market at them and exclude your target audience?
Insensitive and offensive it may be, it's not automatically racist. There's no intent to discriminate against them. They aren't a consideration in that country for that market. If you want to call someone/thing racist, you can finger point at plenty of other things.
I'm so tired of any time someone not white is not depicted properly, it's assumed to be racist instead of just a blunder or a bad marketing mishap as this is.
Insensitive and offensive it may be, it's not automatically racist. There's no intent to discriminate against them. They aren't a consideration in that country for that market. If you want to call someone/thing racist, you can finger point at plenty of other things.
I'm so tired of any time someone not white is not depicted properly, it's assumed to be racist instead of just a blunder or a bad marketing mishap as this is.
Well, if there was a Photoshopped white dude there before, there isn't now. The black guy is now on the Polish site. I guess Microsoft didn't like the bad publicity.
Other companies have used black people to sell items in countries; I think someone pointed out somewhere else that Michael Jordan was used to sell Nike shoes in Poland.
Another way to look at this: will Polish people NOT buy the product jsut because of a black guy in the ad?
Microsoft is so worried about the potential of loosing even one sale that they'd risk offending any non Polish country, and imply that Polish people someone how don't see ap roduct like you & I if a black person is hocking it.
Another way to look at this: will Polish people NOT buy the product jsut because of a black guy in the ad?
Microsoft is so worried about the potential of loosing even one sale that they'd risk offending any non Polish country, and imply that Polish people someone how don't see ap roduct like you & I if a black person is hocking it.
R
Rocketman
Guest
The fact that he's a famous professional basketball player, rather than a professional distinguished-looking black stock photography model has something to do with that.
Yeah, 'cause I'm sure all Polish people know who Michael Jordan is...
Anyway, that's beside the point.
Anyway, that's beside the point.
Not, really, no. The fact that it was Michael Jordan kind of knocks your OP down.
Of course it is racist. How could it not. Companies around the world have always done this and will continue to do this because they know people actually are racists and they like people closely like them espeically in most of the world. Companies will do whatever they need to do to make money. The ads on BET do not look the same as the ones on CMT or on Lifetime. That is never going to change.
A lot of Americans know who Dražen Petrović is. Especially NBA fans and fans of the New Jersey Nets.
I just don't know how marketable it would be to make a pair of "Air Petrovićs" Maybe in Croatia Nike sells em.
And yes, Poland knows who Michael Jordan is.