The Talk
My black is BEAUTIFUL
Being a student in the Communication department means that you will potentially be occupied in the field of advertising. As a result, in the “Introduction to Advertising and Public Relation” course, we were told to make a case analysis on an advertising which was among the 30 Grand Prix Winners from Cannes Lion 2018. But before I present you which one my team and I chose and why, let me explain a little further what Cannes Lion is.
The Cannes Lion Festival first started in 1954, where a group of worldwide silver screen advertising constructors, inspired by the International Film Festival, acknowledged that there should be a similar Festival for advertising films too. This Festival illustrates the perpetual changing face of communications. This is tremendously evident in the latest Festival where there was a brand-new category in the awards list called “Social & Influencer Lion”, presenting the impact of social media in our lives.
After watching all the award-winning advertisements of 2018, my team and I agreed to present “The Talk”. “The Talk” was an advertisement developed for P&G (Procter & Gamble) and was filmed in the USA. Around 11 agencies cooperated to achieve the desirable result, with the major one being the BBDO New York Agency.
“The Talk”, which belongs to P&G’s “My black is beautiful” campaign, discusses the critical phenomenon of discrimination and race biasness against Afro-Americans in the USA. Although the west civilization is evolving impressively, and race discrimination is against Human Rights, it is still deeply rooted in people’s mind that “the black ones”, as they call them, are different from them, not in a diverse/ creative way, but in a minor position.
This advertising presents 6 different cases where parents need to have that awkward talk with their children about the discriminations that they may face because of their dark skin color and how they should face them. In the video there was a boy being bullied and called the “n” world by some white children, a young boy who was given less opportunities in the sports field, a young lady going to a college and being told by her mother that she needs to try twice as hard in order to stand out, a mother asking her son to take his ID with him in case he was stopped when we has walking on the streets at night, a mother trying to prepare her daughter about what her reaction should be in case she was pulled over by the police while driving and a young girl being called beautiful for a black girl.
This advertising managed to stand out and made us choose it for our project because of the message it conveyed that even children face racial biasness and an infringement of their equal opportunity rights. Numerous viewers empathized with these real-based cases, presented on the ad either because they have been victims of this kind of discrimination or because they are sentimental about this social phenomenon. This video quickly went viral and gathered 7 million views before it was even shown on TV.
This video managed to divide viewers’ opinion. A large number of them accused P&G for identity-politics pandering, promoting hatred against the police & exploiting race-baiting to their advantage. The Company’s response was instant as they highlighted that they deliberately desired to make viewers talk about this phenomenon even if not all of them had the same state of mind. “Racism makes us all uncomfortable. Our goal wasn’t to get to one universal piece of copy that everyone agrees with. We wanted to spark a conversation that would turn into dialogue, then understanding, and finally, change.” Damon Jones, director, global company communications at P&G claims.
What to see “The Talk” advertisement? Click to the video attached
Betty Tsakarestou Margie Kam Grasiela Varkari Ina Makrydaki Afroditi Kokla
