Microsoft Caught Changing Race Of Person In An Ad from black to white

Microsoft Caught Changing Race Of Person In An Ad

August 26th, 2009 Posted in Online

Microsoft has been caught with their pants down, so to speak. The Washington-based software giant had published the same photograph as part of an advertisement on both their English and Polish websites and changed the race of one person depicted in the image. More specifically, in the image on Microsoft’s English website, a black male is seen sitting at a table. In the Polish ad, that same black male was replaced by a white male’s head, with the hand of the black male unchanged (who designed this?). Here are the images:

From the English Microsoft website:



From the Polish Microsoft website:


In a statement made to CNET Microsoft stated, “We are looking into the details of this situation,” and “We apologize and are in the process of pulling down the image “

http://erictric.com/online/microsoft-caught-changing-race-of-person-in-an-ad

That's their next ad campaign.

IS the issue that they put a white male face in an ad for Poland (where you can probably count the black people on one hand) or that they put the white model's face on the black model's body?

OK, this is weird. To see if there are any black people in Poland, I went to the CIA Factbook website. For the US and UK it lists "Ethnic groups" and break people out by racial nation (race group). For Poland, it lists "Ethnic Groups" and breaks people out by political nationality with no reference to race. Does the same thing for Germany. For France it mentions race, but oddly.

let's put the blame where it is deserved.

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certainly warrants an alert, I think.......

But nevermind that, they borked the alignment of the window shelf behind him. It's disjointed. The white guy is the replacement.

Dunno. They do it often enough, don't they?

But they could of altered the tone. Thats a bit of an oversight




BTW, the only thing that infuriates the Polish more than a black man is a photoshopped hand. These ad people were clearly treading fragile lines with great care. :)

Its a no brainer I bet. Aren't there a whole lot more African Americans than African-Polands? Its about marketing to a target audience.

When they launch their Nigerian site, I bet all those people will be black

No more double-standards.

Much adieu about nothing

I wasn't aware that they had anything to do with "global". Burnett Productions keeps telling us that their choice of contestants is to reflect their viewing audience; which we might naturally assume is full of stereotypes.

I don't know. Ive never been to Poland. I wouldn't know what type of smiling people in ads make them buy stuff. Maybe Microsoft knows.

In light of all our problems, this seems like quite a molehill to bitch about.

Because they think that Eastern Europeans don't like black people.

so what...? :shrug:

Who cares? :eyes:

they're entitled to think in whatever way they like, and make their own business decisions. there was nothing illegal about their actions in the matter- they're obviously tilting the ad to their perceived target market, as most (successful) businesses do. :shrug:

I was watching some show where they were talking about the demand for racially ambiguous models, and not just for rap videos. Some male model from New York was on the show and it was actually pretty amazing how with no photographic modification, other than angle and lighting, he went from being a possibly southern European to being American black, to being possibly Latino, and just about everything except Chinese.

They will find anything they possibly can to attack the company.

Jay

EDITED TO REMOVE NEWSCORP LINK

And ads will run in these countries that show blacks as buffoons or step-in-fetch it types. Black as authority figures, in romances, intellectuals are not allowed in ads.

Asians are associated with the IT sector. This is an IT/business ad. Clear stereotype, but I wouldn't put it past a savvy company to utilize it.

this.

But poll the 13 black guys in Poland and ask them how infuriated they are about it.


Im just really upset that they didn't include an Inuit in the first place.

If they were running an ad in Afghanistan, I bet theyd be sure to remove all Jews from it too (including the Asian guy who converted to Judaism 2 months ago)

Stop trying to gin up conflict. The black guy doesn't look Polish. They wanted Poles to visualize themselves using their product. The Asian guy isn't in a suit so he makes less of an impact on the imagination of the potential buyer. If you want to complain about Microsoft, complain about testing their software for them, but this is nothing.

Is the white individual Polish?

Only a white individual can be a Pole?

It's a racism and fucking bad photoshopping.