The Psychological Power of Ethnic Images in Advertising

by Carol Nathanson-Moog


Images in advertising supply key pieces in the complex jigsaw puzzle we use to figure out who we are. The relentless stream of people grinning and pouting and dancing and slinking and munching and exhorting out at us from radios, billboards, magazines, and TV screens aren't just selling toothpaste--they're selling identities.

The best ads are extremely powerful, microcosmic, behavioral change laboratories designed to hook consumers by reaching into their psyches and grabbing them where they live.

Advertisements do influence peoples' self perceptions. They tell us who we're supposed to be and what we're supposed to value. And in a way they comprise a psychological self-portrait, however distorted, of the culture.

More and more, the advertising industry has become sensitized to the problems both of presenting homogenized images of people in order to capture a broader mass market, and of trotting out warmed-over ethnic stereotypes in an effort to reach specific segments. If nothing else, advertising pays homage to the bottom line. As consumers have become increasingly sophisticated and self-confident, they have grown less willing to buy products if they don't accept the images of themselves and their loved ones that are used as advertising vehicles. This is the era of the consumer's revenge, and the advertising industry is listening with all due respect.

When members of a particular ethnic group never see anyone who really looks like them in ads, they develop a sense of being non-persons in the larger society. In their neighborhoods, they may be the greatest, but when it comes to participating in the images and symbols of success and happiness held up as cultural standards by ads, they're often nowhere to be seen. Even their money doesn't count. They simply don't exist.

On the other hand, stereotyped images of ethnics dotting ads resonate with and reinforce perceptions people have of each other's ethnic identities. There is an inherent dilemma here. While the enlightened position has always been to abhor stereotyping as a caricatured representation of many by the qualities of a few, to some degree advertising must present stereotypes in order for specific market segments to be recognizable as distinct groups, even to themselves.

In terms of its effect on ethnic identities, the crucial point here is that utilizing a stereotyped image doesn't necessarily make an ad damaging. What gets people upset--and rightly so--is when advertising promotes negative stereotypes.

When an ad for Bandolino shoes uses the stereotype of the seductive, sensual Italian male as its emotional hook, it results in both a powerful sales tool for the advertiser and a positive psychological boost to that group's ethnic identity. Certainly, the stereotyping could have been executed in a tasteless, sleazy fashion; but it is not. The image is drawn with skill and subtlety.

Actually, the Bandolino ad plays on two stereotypes at the same time: 1) Italian men are sexy, and 2) American women have "great. . . legs." Both are reasonably positive images. The ad's psychological and sales effectiveness is heightened by having the leg visible only from mid-calf down, a perspective from which most women's legs look pretty good, even "great." This makes it easy for women to project themselves into the fantasy of having the kind of legs which "deserve a little Italian touch."

In contrast to Bandolino's use of an agreeable ethnic symbol to enhance the psychological value of its product, Levy's draws on images of other ethnic groups to unhinge the doors of stereotyping and expand the potential market for its unabashedly "real Jewish rye." It is a "set-breaker": it works by jolting readers out of their preconceptions.

On the way to the bank, the Levy's series did an extraordinary bit of public relations work for Jewish ethnic identity. In the unconscious, the psychological message of this ad translates as "You don't have to be Jewish to love Jews." Moreover, by using clearcut ethnic images of other groups, such as the Native American, the negative stereotype of Jews as an exclusive, clannish lot is blasted apart. At the same time, the product, like the Jewish people themselves, insists on retaining its ethnic identity as "real." This ad models a process of ethnic identification which sells more than bread; it sells a perception of openness and mutual respect for differences.

The next ad, for Prevention magazine, is another psychological set-breaker--on a number of fronts. Ordinarily, people in this culture define an "expert" on health matters as some learned emissary from the medical community. The white-coated, white-skinned, Marcus Welby type is the customary symbol ads use to hawk "advice on a healthier heart."

Stereotyped perceptions of Eskimos as being primitive foreigners from somewhere around the North Pole come under broad attack in this ad. We are asked to "listen," on a non-verbal level, to this individual's expertise, to hear what his body has to say. Radiating health and good will, the Eskimo faces us with the compelling visual message that we can communicate with and learn from members of ethnic groups outside of our own spheres of experience.

One of the all-time set-breakers is Kodak's 1972 ad for the pocket Instamatic camera. To blacks, the image of a black Santa bypasses certain logical roadblocks and sends a direct message to their unconscious about possibilities, about potentials, about freedom. This ad is the antithesis of those which would hope to tap the black market by sprinkling scenes of frolicking whites with a few black faces.

Kodak's black Santa had a lot to say to its market. The ad demonstrated an intimate understanding of the alienation certain ethnics feel, and addressed the issue head-on by a visual statement indicating they could play any role they wanted to in this society.

Marketing research has shown what people have known intuitively all along--that 85% of the meaning and impact of messages are gathered from the visuals. A picture is worth a thousand copy points in shaping how ethnic groups see themselves and are seen by others. If Kodak sells lots of cameras by advertising to ethnic groups in a way that elevates their self-esteem and enhances their identity, it deserves all the market share it can get.



Carol Nathanson-Moog, who lives in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania is President of Creative Focus, a consulting company which specializes in the psychological assessment of advertising as a means of determining its sales effectiveness.


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