Advertising in Mexico perpetuates racism and classism

Since before Mexico became an independent country in 1821, its population already knew conflicts of race and clbad. When Europeans colonized the Americas more than 500 years ago, they created a social hierarchy based on the color of the skin and the race that still persists today.

In Mexican advertising and movies, lower clbad people are almost always represented with darker skinwhile those of high clbad are presented with fair skin. For example, the main character of Rome, the Oscar-winning film, is a maid with dark skin it represents a person considered poor in Mexico. During, Your employer is rich and white.

Some Mexican companies they use white skin models to represent their brandsfrom beer to designer clothes. These calls "ambitious announcements" they have become a common practice in most advertising agencies in Mexico.

I have been working in the advertising business in Mexico for 25 years and I am an attentive witness. A survey was recently published in which I examined how this ambitious advertising shows the racial and social inequalities in Mexico, strengthen colonial thought in the country.

The powerful family Garza Lagüera still has an influence on the beer industry in Mexicoalthough he sold most shares of his brewing empire to Heineken International. One of their beers is Tecatewho ran ads very controversial.

In 2013, a campaign featured a billboard showing three thin, white-skinned women in a bar with the title: "Buffet, it's easy to be a man, Cerveza Tecate, for you." The advertisement, which was considered offensive by the National Commission of Human Rights of Mexico, was removed by the bottling company only after a public protest against the badist content of the ad.

In addition to presenting women as objects of consumption, advertising showed a specific type of "appearance" this is observed in several Mexican commercials. This is known by the advertisers of the industry as the "Latin American international appearance"which consists of people from white skin, black eyes and black hair. When advertising agencies or production companies contact casting agents, they ask for models that reflect this idealized Latin image and not the ordinary people that we can see walking the streets.

Another beer pub Tecate from 2018 presented to Sylvester Stallone as a coach persecuted by six Mexicans who wanted him to prepare for the Russian Football World Cup. All the men had the same skin color as Stallone, an Italian-American. This is an example of an announcement whose implicit message is that white people in the middle clbad prefer a certain brand.

On the other hand, People with darker skin usually appear in charity adsrepresenting poor families from poor socioeconomic groups in need of donations. Advertisers rarely use them to represent an ambitious or desirable lifestyle.

A recent campaign, created in 2018 for luxury stores El Palacio de Hierro, attempted to portray the diversity of the brand by presenting an androgynous model, with freckles and people with disabilities. That sounds good except that they were all white-skinned.

The Mexican advertising industry has the impression that if a white person uses a specific brand, the product will be considered desirable. Mexican sellers believe that if a consumer buys an "ambitious" product used by a person with lighter skinthis consumer will think he is participating in a desirable "white" lifestyle.

However, brands should think about it when they decide to deal with this problem. In 2018, a social media campaign of a beer called "Indio" attempted to draw attention to racism in Mexico. The campaign, #OrgullosamenteIndio, featured Mexicans dressed in a t-shirt with a racist insult and a strikethrough word. Instead of saying "Pinche Indio" says "Proudly Indian". The only problem is that the campaign used predominantly white models.

The campaign failed on social networks, which launched a torrent of memes and mocking messages "lack of sensitivity" campaign and labeling "racist". Some Twitter users have commented that the darker skin had "bleached with Photoshop", a technique that I mention in my research.

At the end of March, a new campaign was launched on social networks to announce "Mezcal Oro of Oaxaca" with a photo of a white-skinned horsewoman surrounded by Aboriginal women. After the networks scandal throughout the product promotion, which mainly concerned white skin models, the Cámara Nacional del Mezcal asked "to lower and cancel racist advertising" from the company.

The Spaniards created a racist and clbadist society in Mexicowhere power was in the hands of a few European families. These values ​​are so rooted in Mexican society that they still permeate the country's advertising and culture. When the "ambitious advertising" only use models with "Latin American international appearance ", the social divisions present in the stormy history of Mexico are strengthening.

Carl W. Jones: Lecturer at the Faculty of Media and Communication at the University of Westminster