Apologies to my loyal fans who have missed me. I have been lame and not written anything for a bit. And when I say lame, I don't mean like a horse...
So, what gems have I got for you today? It should be good since I have had nearly two weeks to think about it. Well, sadly it's not that great, but could be a bit controversial. Aha! I've got your attention now! I am going to write about the great Microsoft Photoshopping balls up and whether it was right or wrong. Those of you that don't know, Microsoft made a massive balls up earlier this week when they published a photoshopped image on their Polish website where they changed a black man into a white man. You can read the full story here.
The question that everyone is asking is "Were Microsoft right to change a black man into a white man?" and my answer to that is a definite "Yes". Don't worry I'll let you pick yourself up off the floor before I explain myself...
Firstly, before everyone gets all high and mighty, this is not an argument about racism, although things like this always get turned into that. Marketing products is all about selling, and the best way to do that is to show how a product can be used in your life. And I don't necessarily mean 'Your' life as in you who is reading this, but I mean 'your' as in whoever I am speaking to when selling. If I was selling a mobile phone and had done a great job with a great campaign in the UK using a mix of races, then great. But if I was then to sell to India, I would change the people to reflect the Indian population. An Indian may look at an advert with a black man in and be thoroughly confused as to why he was being shown it.
The same goes with Poland. According to the CIA's website Poland's ethnicity is as follows:
- Polish 96.7%
- German 0.4%
- Belarusian 0.1%
- Ukrainian 0.1%
- other and unspecified 2.7%
This would mean the black man would be relevant to 2.7% of the population, which just doesn't make any sense.
However, I do still have a problem with what Microsoft have done. Well, not with what they have done but how it was done. For my argument to work (and the generally thought behind advertising) then why leave the Far Eastern guy in? And why just photoshop his head and not his hand? And why oh why was the photoshopping so bad! What they should have done is had a selection of actors at the original photoshoot and done several versions, or if that hadn't been done, they should have reshot either some one in a similar position that could be photoshopped in or just done a new photoshoot following a similar theme.
Anyway, I could rant about this for hours and most of you don't care. I am sure you will have different opinions (I'd be worried if you didn't) and feel free to let me know your views on it.
Right, I will now get thinking of a more fun and exciting post to do shortly. I think I have lectured to you enough! Now go out and play over the long weekend.
2 comments:
Well, is it possible to say for certain that the first picture wasn't photoshopped itself?
Marketing is a cynical and subliminal exercise, so as soon as we start to question it everything becomes a question of relativity.
However, I'd ask does the image matter more to the potential customers or to those who have to justify being paid for the work which went into creating it?
From my experience if you can justify being paid twice for essentially the same effort then corporate pressures will force you to use any means to do so, and therefore it would be interesting to examine the data collected to shows it was an efficient use of resources.
Personally I'm sceptical about the inherent biases in data gathering methods because I don't believe that the target audience who might be swayed by the picture is likely to be influence by the difference in appearances if the message is similar.
i was actually going to say about the hand.... how irritating!
Post a Comment