Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Racist Ads of the Day (via Dubai).


(click ads, via)
For the China Times restaurant in Dubai. Nothing to add.
OK yes, it's a ripoff of the 1960s Levy's campaign.
Ad agency: DDB Dubai.
Previous stops on the worldwide racist ad tour:
India • India againThailandBoliviaUSA • USA again • USA again.

14 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

> Nothing to add.

except that this a take off on the 'you don't have to be jewish to eat levy's real jewish rye bread' ads?

I-)

12:39 PM  
Anonymous -1-T-M- said...

"Things aren't always Black & White," Tyson Craig Beckford would chime in.

Beckford, best known as a Ralph Lauren model, was born to a Jamaican father of Panamanian descent and a Chinese Jamaican mother.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Tyson_Beckford.jpg

1:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Levy's Rye - also from DDB.

3:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't Chinese people have squinted eyes? What's wrong with this ad?

3:33 PM  
Blogger Vinnie said...

I disagree. This is not a ripoff of the Levy's campaign. At least, not a real ripoff. In the Levy's campaign, people were not made to look Jewish. In fact, I would have never thought of the Levy's campaign if it wasn't mentioned on here.

3:48 PM  
Blogger copyranter said...

No not a complete rip-off, same basic idea, just flip-flopped execution-wise. Which was a big mistake.

3:52 PM  
Anonymous Beth said...

I disagree as well. This is not a direct ripoff.

//Beth @ the New York City Ad Agency

5:11 PM  
Blogger Burro Hall said...

Here's a similar billboard from Queretaro, Mexico.

5:35 PM  
Anonymous Allan said...

Showed this to my co-workers and they didn't understand what was wrong with it. I suggested it was no different than doing an ad with people in minstrel show black-face. "And what would be wrong with that?" asked one of them.

Kinda flabbergasted right now.

6:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Remember this concept, from 2005?

http://www.blog.filmarmy.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/TJFF-2005.jpeg

I am so sick of concepts built around ethnic authenticity. I am so sick of seeing concepts around "Eating this brand of chocolate makes you Swiss, with an alpine horn in your hands and a tyrolean hat on!"; "This taco sauce puts a sombrero on you!"; "Drink this whiskey, talk with a Scottish accent!" and so on, and so on, and so on.

It's a lazy concept! It's been done a hundred times, it's never been good, and it doesn't communicate any distinctive selling proposition. There is nobody walking around right now thinking "I could really go for a slice of pizza, but which one is the most Italian?" So why do creatives think anyone cares how French the crêpes are?

10:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

> So why do creatives think anyone
> cares how French the crêpes are?

consumers like to think that they are 'being real' (i.e., tasting the real thing) without having had to leave home. xref that belgian fries place on 2nd ave and single number street as an example. it's the 'i am eating real french crepes while you are eating something that came off a conagra assembly line.'.

I-)

12:02 PM  
Anonymous -1-T-M- said...

@ anon 10:43 AM
"Eating this brand of chocolate makes you Swiss, with an alpine horn in your hands and a tyrolean hat on!"

Your hills seem to be still alive and reverberating with the sound of music.

Get with the program... Toblerone was 3D First

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5VQAWenP7s

12:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think it's just a bit over exaggerating an asian's facial features. Our eyes aren't that squinty. Therefore it's slightly offensive.

4:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Asians have as much variety in eyes as everyone else. My eyes are rather wide, for example. Asian eyes are shaped differently, but they aren't *squinty* - that's just an oversimplification of the subtle differences in shape, like skull structure and the epicanthic fold.

In short, asian eyes are not any squintier than other races' eyes, making this ad not just slightly racist, but very racist, playing on old, Yellow Peril stereotypes about Chinese people.

4:59 PM  

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