Black flight from advertising in the 1970s has a lot to do with why the makeup of ad agencies -- and the advertising itself -- is so much whiter than the U.S., said former ad man Eugene Morris, who
left a white ad agency 40 years ago to join an African-American ad firm. "When I first came into the business, if I had projected 40 years into the future, I would never have described the current
situation, where African-Americans are still in the single digits in all these agencies," he said. The issue is at the fore now since a recent ad for Dove body wash, showing a black woman, white woman
and olive-skinned woman standing next to each other, but with "before" and "after" skin closeups behind them suggesting that puts the "before" skin behind the African American woman. Various bloggers
have raised the buzz, suggesting that the ad seems to say the Dove body wash "turns black women into Latino women into white women," as one blogger put it.
Last year, a Madison Avenue
Project-backed analysis of ads shown during the 2010 Super Bowl found that of the 76 creative directors responsible for selling beer, cars and other products to the game's 106 million viewers, 70 were
white men and five were white women.
advertisement
advertisement
Read the whole story at The Huffington Post »
