Recapping on yesterday while my unit tests run

[andrewducker]

The BBC picked up on the Microsoft story from yesterday



What really gets me is the complete lack of thought. If they didn't want to have a black person in a Polish advert (for whatever reason) then why not reshoot the bloody advert? Someone didn't realise that nowadays you _cannot_ get away with this kind of thing...

[Poll #1449235]

Comments

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

I'm blaming Microsoft as this incident tells me nothing about Polish racism except that Microsoft believes it exists.

[natural20.livejournal.com]

Yup, thought about this for a while and this is the conclusion I've reached also.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to fault Poland more than MS: I've worked with MS, and they're frankly uninterested in the colour of your skin so long as the colour of your money is good. Also, Poland's track record with minorities isn't exactly stellar... a side-effect of a sad history due to unfortunate geography.

-- Steve does think it was a rather dismal airbrushing attempt, though. Frankly amaturish, really.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Cost of a reshoot would be a LOT higher - still peanuts to Microsoft as a whole, but probably quite significant to the Marketing Manager for Poland. Not that I'm saying they should have done what they did, but quick Photoshop vs arranging photographer, set, getting models in, quite probably in a different office, then getting the image re-signed-off by all stakeholders...

[lizzie-and-ari.livejournal.com]

Yes but had they done a few different images with different models at the time of the original photoshoot the price difference would have been negligible.

If, you know, that's really what they felt they had to do.

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

"then getting the image re-signed-off by all stakeholders..."

This step should have been required for the edit anyway.

[paddie-gal.livejournal.com]

I actually don't think it's inherently racist - I don't know Poland terribly well, but maybe there's not a lot of black people there. so if Microsoft are making an ad to appeal to a certain demographic, and it's intended to make the viewer identify with the product, then you tailor the add to your target audience. How is it different to having a product specifically for black people, like hair relaxer or black skin makeup? you wouldn't include a white person in the advert, cos that's not your demographic.

or am I totally up my own ass on this one?

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree with you, which, if my past instincts about racial issues are holding true, means you're dead wrong.

*shrug*

[mooism.livejournal.com]

If I read the CIA world factbook page on Poland (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pl.html) (see "Ethnic groups", under "People") correctly, non-whites made up at most 2.7% of the Polish population as of 2002.

So I don't think it's racist, but I do think it was cack-handed of Microsoft to photoshop the photo, and so shoddily too.

[paddie-gal.livejournal.com]

Oh totally - Microsoft are the dumbasses here, for the way they did it, rather than what they did.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Both of them look like badly photoshopped heads.

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's a poor attempt to 'deliver the message' while 'engaging the target demographic', based on some knowledge of Poland, but without considering that someone nowadays would actually notice.

Knowing little about the racial situation in Poland (beyond high level demographics), I can't really comment on the second question.