Over the last few weeks in various neighbourhoods around Mexico City over 4,000 posters have appeared challenging the advertising community to produce less racist messaging. With headlines such as “Whites are 10% of the population but are in 70% of the ads” or “If advertising reflects society, then advertising is racist”, in this project Westminster’s Carl Jones set out to draw attention to racism in Mexican advertising.
Some Mexican brands choose to feature light skinned models to represent their Mexican products, ranging from beer to designer clothing. This so-called “aspirational advertising” has become common practice for most advertising agencies in Mexico. Former Creative Director and Digital Media BA Senior Lecturer Carl Jones wants agencies to realise that they are re-enforcing racist and colonial thinking by selecting models with light skin to appear in the majority of advertising messages. This activist campaign is part of his PhD research into decolonising advertising.
Under the hashtag and social media pages #RacismoNeon (Neon Racism), Jones has created seven different posters printed on neon paper that have been placed in locations where many ad agencies and their clients are located, such as Colonia Condesa and La Roma. One poster placed by a local agency says, “Advertising only shows indigenous culture in charity ads.”
Jones believes that it is time for advertising in Mexico to evolve and to reflect the Mexican population as it really is. He said: “We need to remove colonial thinking from the creative process so that advertising will not reflect racism, classism, misogyny etc. In order to accomplish this, my research concludes that Mexican advertising agencies should reflect the culture as it is and not how brands pretend Mexican culture to be.”
The ‘Racismo Neon’ social media pages on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are designed to create conversation amongst workers in the advertising industry and have them discuss ways to remove colonial thinking such as white superiority from advertising messages.
As a solution, Jones suggests a change within advertising agencies which are dominated by mostly light skinned males in top positions. Even though more women are obtaining these roles, there needs to be more of a gender balance, and far more racial diversity is needed. Also, in the hiring of actors is where racism can also occur, where the typical casting call asks for “International Latin American look” which refers to models that have light skin.
Finally, Jones proposes that regulatory bodies that govern advertising should be more proactive, creating specific rules that guide the ad industry before adverts become offensive. These solutions will help encourage inclusive messages and eliminate colonial thinking from advertising.
Find out more information about Jones’s Racismo Neon campaign.
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