Post 8 (or, an exploration of racism in advertising)

 I would like to an explore an older ad for the purpose of this post, and by "older ad" I mean an advertisement that is only 9 years old so it is still fairly recent and caused quite a stir at the time. I am, of course, referring to Sony's PSP White billboard which was put up in Amsterdam that advertises... the PSP.

So is the media attention

One of the interesting aspects of this ad has to do with the location in which it was displayed. This particular picture is from Amsterdam and the campaign was designed for the entirely of The Netherlands. What makes this important is the perception of race and race relations around the globe. In the United States, the ad is seen as the domination of a black person at the hands of a white person - the semiotic analysis gives us that quite clearly - but it is due to race relations in the U.S. that we picked up on the racial aspect of the ad. Some journalists have argued that the ad would never have flown in the U.S. and thus was created for the European market because slavery and segregation are still fairly recent in our nation's history. The argument, therefore, implies that the racial aspect would not be picked up in Europe. Let's ignore the fact that many European nations were involved in the slave trade; it was not solely the domain of the United States where most slaves were brought.

One may argue that the nature of the product (a special white colored variation of the standard black handheld gaming system) means that the advertisements will play up the color difference as a way to entice customers. However, products that come in variable colors have skirted the race issue by focusing solely on the products and by avoiding connections between the colors and race.