The research is composed of the following parts: Title, Abstract , Introduction,

Literature review ((theory)at least 5 scientific sources – journal articles + book, websites
etc.), Methodological Framework:
Design the method application
• Sample (who are the individuals you are applying
the method on)
• Instruments (questionnaires, interview guides etc.) (We conduct our own study;at least
one research method), Results and discussions, Conclusions, References, Appendixes (if it is
the case – for instance, questionnaire, focus-group guide, interview guide etc.)

Is culture-crossing marketing still raising pertinent racial worries regarding black people?

How do advertisers connect with targeted ethnic demographics without crossing stereotypes?
There can be an ambivalent reaction coming from the public: whether empathy and strong
emotion or controversy on occasion. As the world becomes more diverse and
multiculturalism expands, marketers need to rethink their strategies and develop new
communication tactics. Can the image makers use cultural markers like symbols, language,
behavioral patterns without being manipulative or trigger backlash for being racist? This
paper is a quantitative and qualitative research that explores this issue bringing the Theory
of Intercultural Accommodation into discussion.

What exactly does "Intercultural Accommodation" mean? Holland and Gentry1 describe it as
an attempt coming from communicators, who aim to resemble more to members of another
cultural group, with the aim of persuading.

In marketing communications, for example, accommodation behaviors could include

anything from using a spokesperson of similar ethnic background in advertisements, hiring
ethnic sales people, to using language, music, art, national flags or other cultural symbols as
part of the brand or promotion. In other words: Intercultural Accommodation involves
communicators of one group borrowing cultural symbols from another group in order to
appear more similar, enhance communication, and gain approval.

Researchers asked themselves how do all these cultural symbols in an ad make it more
effective. One can presume that customers will treat the ad more favorably, but what happens
when some people don't feel a connection with their ethnic community, moreover repudiate
it? In the latter case, people will react negatively to accommodation attempts according to
the research cited in this paper.

Most previous researches on marketing to ethnic groups have been conducted in North
America, due to its cosmopolitanism. Therefore, these studies divided three periods of time:

1
Jonna L. Holland and James W. Gentry (1997) ,"The Impact of Cultural Symbols on Advertising Effectiveness: a
Theory of Intercultural Accommodation", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 24, eds. Merrie
Brucks and Deborah J. MacInnis, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 483-489.
Prior to 1960- no interest in ethnic groups, mid 1960s to 1980s- focus on African-Americans,
and the third era began in the 1980s and continues today. It's interesting because in the
beginning the stream of work has been examining from an emic point of view, whereas the
recent studies tend to apply theories to see if they fit.

But how does the consumer feel about marketers accommodating their culture? Hitherto
(1997) there had been no studies from the consumer’s point of view. But nowadays, with the
fast evolution of internet and its freedom of expression we can clearly state if an ad appealed
to an ethnic community and investigate the reasons.

The two researchers bring into discussion the intercultural accommodation model that not
only addresses the consumer’s affective and cognitive responses to accommodation, but also
provides insight to the factors that influence the strength and type of reaction, as well as the
consequences of that reaction. Studies of Deshpande, Hoyer, and Donthu (1986); O’Guinn
and Meyer (1983); Whittler, Calantone, and Young (1991) found that if people do not identify
strongly with their ethnic group, it is unlikely that said ethnic group membership will be a
predictor of their behavior or response to an advertisement. Vice versa, ethnic group
members who identify strongly with their heritage are likely to have a stronger emotional
response to the use of their cultural symbols in marketing communication.

As the demographics of the North American market continue to change, and as international
marketing becomes increasingly vital to every business, expertise in communicating with
groups of various cultures is becoming an essential marketing skill. But what happens when
non-bias commercial featuring ethnicities other than white are marked as prejudiced?

In my inquiry on finding interesting and thought provoking resources I have come across an
article on theatlantic.com2 that tangentially analyses ads that target ethnic demographics.
The main question is when do multicultural ads become offensive, and it's mainly focused on
African-Americans. In the comment section, many have expressed their disdain regarding a
previous article that featured commercials from the 70's with blacks, arguing that those are
completely racist. The reply of one reader comes right after:

“What seems so lame and stereotypical to Eur-Americans here in 2015 seemed much
less so to Afro-Americans in 1970. Most Afro-Americans were happy to be recognized
as thinking, buying human beings after over 300 years of being “branded” as
subhuman beasts. (I’m working on a book, “Mad Invisible Men & Women,” that
chronicles the history of “black” images and image makers in America.)”

In other words, why does everything to be sanitized and politically correct when behavioral
patterns of other cultures are exposed? People with different heritage can make the
difference between stereotypes and the actual individuals.

2
Consultat pe 25 Nov 2016: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/06/advertising-
race-1970s stereotypes-offensive/395624/
As a matter of fact, in many cases the people behind the Ad were actually identifying with the
targeted group. This was the case of Tom Burell3 an African-American, who created ads
targeted at blacks, ads that were blamed for being racist in the article4 mentioned previously.
Tom stated that their: “work has been very successful in creating work that makes our target
feel good about ourselves and our culture.” This approach is defined by him as positive
realism5. Talk about how people nowadays criticize an ad based on their contemporary
framework without taking into consideration their context and repercussions.

Of course, I cannot generalize this ethic practice to all marketers because many have
reduced a culture to a few interests or characteristic in order to “connect” with them and
that is completely condemnable. One can not forget the hardship and terror that African-
Americans had to go through. But why do some blacks still feel stigmatized? Lack of proper
education; overly sensitive people that put the blame on the “white privilege” whithout
researching the true facts, because it’s easier to play the victim. Also we cannot be oblivious
to stereotypes and stop being cynical because we are all not alike. Everyone is different.
Races have their particularities and it’s somehow provocative in a good way to laugh it off, if
you know that you identify with it, and that’s just a small fracture of your complex
individuality. We have to stop playing the blame game, the victims if it’s not the case and
focus on how can we be the best prototype for our culture.

In my opinion it's merely decisive if an ad has a higher potential of impact if resonates with a
certain demographic. We should focus on its positive or negative repercussion, at a certain
point in time and why was it perceived that way.

What is Cross Cultural Marketing?

Cross-cultural marketing is defined as the strategic process of marketing among consumers

whose culture differs from that of the marketer's own culture at least in one of the

fundamental cultural aspects, such as language, religion, social norms and values,

education, and the living style. Cross-cultural marketing demands marketers to be aware of

and sensitive to the cultural differences; to respect the right to culture by the consumers in

various cultures and marketplaces, marketers should understand that they deserved the

3
Consultat 19 Nov 2016: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrell_Communications_Group.
4
Consultat 20 Nov 2016: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/06/casual-racism-
and-greater-diversity-in-70s-advertising/394958/.
5
Consultat 20 Nov 2016:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/berlinschoolofcreativeleadership/2014/03/13/adlegend-tom-burrell-
shares-four-tips-for-entrepreneurs-to-do-business-well-and-social-good/#3131434e553a.
right to their cultures.

Why Cross Cultural Marketing?

From the anthropological perspective all market behaviors are culture-bound. Both

consumer behavior and business practices are performed to a large extent by the culture

within which they take place. Therefore, in order to match the marketing mix with

consumer preferences, purchasing behavior, and product-use patterns in a potential

market, marketers must have a thorough understanding of the cultural environment of

that market, i.e., marketing cross-culturally

In the 1970s, something special began happening in American advertising. At the tail
end of the civil-rights movement, the industry began to move away from its decades-
long habit of portraying African Americans almost exclusively in positions of
servitude or inferiority, as props in ads aimed at white audiences. By the 1970s,
companies such as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola began increasing the racial diversity
depicted in their campaigns. In 1974, Jello became one of the first big companies to
hire an African American spokesperson—Bill Cosby. The goal was twofold for
corporations: to keep up with the times, and to broaden their potential consumer
base.

But the way many agencies went about this demonstrates how little they understood
about their target demographic—and the results, like so many vintage ads, appear
deeply misguided to modern audiences. To McDonald’s, for example, appealing to
African American consumers specifically meant, in part, ads such as “Makin’ it” and
“Dinnertimin,’” which made extensive use of “g-dropping.”

For instance, in a 1969 study done in New York City, William Labov6 found that in
casual conversation, g-dropping varied with social class as follows: Percentage of g
dropping: Lower class-80%, Working class- 49%, Lower middle class-32%, Upper
middle class- 5%. In other words, as class status rises,percentage of g-dropping falls.

Neil Drossman, an executive creative director and partner at his own ad agency,
agreed, calling the McDonald’s ads “a really cynical and superficial effort to reach a

6
William Labov, Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular, University of Pennsylvania
Press, Philadelphia, 1972, pg. 73
black audience.” Drossman, who began working in New York ad agencies in the 70s,
said he remembers his firm working on an ad featuring a black couple and being
asked if it looked “too urban.” According to Drostman, most of the industry’s
missteps resulted from an ignorance on behalf of mainstream ad companies (though
there were and are specialized black agencies), but the general failure in tone was
something that even the conventions of the era can’t really excuse. “What
differentiated the good agencies of that period from the big, bad ones (the great
majority) was a respect for the target and a desire to understand it,” Drossman said.
So what could be the causes of misinterpretation?

If microtargeting is a legacy of 1970s advertising industry shifts, then so is the

casual—or symbolic—racism that inevitably resulted. As the sociologist Anthony
Cortese noted in his book Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in
Advertising, “Stereotypes of blacks and ethnic minorities have not been eliminated
but have changed in character, taking subtler and more symbolic or underhanded
forms.”

“Racist” commercials made by people of colour

A more recent example of entrusting hip-hop tastemakers with ad messaging occurred in

2013 when Mountain Dew hired Tyler, The Creator to write and direct a series of three
commercials:

Twitter exploded in outrage, led by Syracuse academic Boyce Watkins, who called the third
ad “arguably the most racist commercial in history.” Tyler responded at length:

I guess he found it racist because I was portraying stereotypes, which is ridiculous because,
one, all of those dudes [in the line-up] are my friends. Two, they’re all basically in their own
clothes. [...] Three, no [commenters] saw that commercial and said, this is racist. Everyone
either said, “Wow, this is ridiculous, it’s a goat talking,” or they said, “Wow, this is the
dumbest, why would they even make this?” [...]

It’s interesting to analyze the comments posted on Youtube regarding this video. I will list a
few examples: Cody Taylor says “im black i didnt find it racist at all i found it quite funny !!!”,
Christopher Clark “Racist?... didn't Tyler the Creator direct all the Mountain Dew goat ads?
Maybe they forgot the type of person he was lol. Prolly just did it to see what the public's
reactions would be and how much he could get away with lol.” Also xseeker comments that
:

“If this commercial is racist, how come the goat was portrayed as the actual
criminal and not one of the black guys? I also think it's ironic that all the
people crying about racism didn't even notice one of the police officers is
black. So much for being racist against blacks.”
The ratio of comments complaining of the ad being racist is smaller than the
comments that opposed this idea. Furthermore opinions similar to those expressed

by youtubers were the ones on a website7 which discusses how McDonalds and
Burger King targeted black consumers in the 70’s.

7
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/06/casual-racism-and-greater-diversity-in-70s-
advertising/394958/#article-comments