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After all the egregious race-related faux pas that companies have made over the years, it boggles the mind that an ad so flagrant could get the stamp of approval presumably after numerous c-suite executives and dozens of advertising and marketing people laid eyes on it. At a certain point, it becomes difficult to write such offenses off as “blind spots” and the benefit of the doubt is eclipsed by justified cynicism.
The most recent victim of a racist ideology, whether implicit or explicit, is Heinz. The famed ketchup and tomato product manufacturer is taking fire from outraged social media users who were made aware of an advertisement that Nels Abbey, a writer for The Guardian, flagged while waiting for the train at Vauxhall tube station in London.
The oversized billboard depicts a wedding scene where a Black woman is gleefully eating a forkful of sauce-dripping pasta noodles while her white groom looks on. Also pictured are two older white people who are assumed to be his parents, mother and father. Here lies the rub. The only other person in the picture is an older Black woman who one would reasonably assume represents the Black bride’s mother. However, no father is depicted. This might come across as innocuous to some and others might not think of it at all but what does it say about a company that seemingly tried to inject racial diversity into its messaging and yet still failed to secure the bag?
Abbey took to his experience seeing the ad for the first time and wrote about the dangers of perpetuated stereotypes in society for The Guardian:
Admittedly, the stats on single parenthood look notably vicious for Black communities. The figure in England and Wales increased from 48.5% in 2011 to 51.0% in 2021.
However, in Black communities, the synonymizing of single parenthood with deadbeat fatherhood is an error. As in all communities, it is not uncommon for Black or multi-racial parents to break up or to be unmarried, but it is increasingly unusual for Black fathers not to play a super-active role in the lives of their children. The stereotypes we inherited from yesteryear are yet to be updated and are crowded out by statistics that don’t paint a full picture.
For their part, Heinz apologized for the ad telling The Independent:
“We always appreciate members of the public’s perspective on our campaigns. We understand how this ad could have unintentionally perpetuated negative stereotypes.
“We extend our deepest apologies and will continue to listen, learn, and improve to avoid this happening again in the future.”
However, here’s where we circle back to the part about how difficult it is to extend the courtesy of the benefit of the doubt to these corporate entities. Just days after the wedding ad debacle, Heinz was back “apologizing” for more seemingly racist imagery in their advertising…
A white TikTok user called @StuffAboutAdvertising took notice of the controversy and got varied reactions from Black folks about their interpretations of the ad.
What say you? How do you feel about these Heinz ads? Are you willing to give the benefit of the doubt that there was no racist intent?
