Racist Ads Abound

Belo, Bela and EO

What is wrong with the world today, I thought humans are suppose to have evolved into much, much, more intelligent and stronger beings, but NO, the people now are just too sensitive and easily get offended about a lot of things, politically correct, racist bullshit... It's all about the facts. There are a lot of creative ads being criticized, and people are looking at it in different levels.



Belo(w) The Belt

Some say the Belo men ad is 100% wrong in thinking there is something wrong with "Kulay Kayumanggi". They said we should say NO to the Racism in this ad. They said it was very demeaning , and many were glad that the Belo people did something about it! They pulled out the highly criticized ad campaign.

The Belo Medical Group has apologized for an advertising campaign that drew criticisms for supposed racist connotation.  The ad promotes a skin whitening line of products for men and received adverse comments from netizens for allegedly glorifying whiter skin as something synonymous to being rich, successful and attractive. One part of the ad carried the tagline:  "10% lighter. 100% more sosyal."

Does this mean that you need to be a little white to get the approval of everybody in the society? To be in? To be "sosyal"? It makes some people  sick to their stomach to see how some people put too much value on trying to be "White".

They say the ad shows that it is better to have a lighter skin. The tagline speak for the ad itself. 10% lighter 100% approved.  So what if you're kayumanggi which is our color or black like our native people? Are they not 100% approved? Or should they be 101% - 200% approved for possessing a true Pinoy color?

In Europe tanning products are advertised to make your skin darker but they are not perceived as racist. Are the people complaining here creating their own inferiority complex? Ask that question from the thousands of people buying whitening products.

Modern day brainwashing, not racism? I just see a young man here becoming vain, aka Justine Bieber, but still is it a discrimination for Filipinos were most of us are fair-complexioned people, moreno or kayumanggi? Shouldn't we be proud of our color because there's nothing wrong with it?

Indeed...some are trying to make money on the people's insecurities...Isn't that what corruption also means?...corruption of the mind.

Or was this intentionally done so that it would be talked about. Remember the Bayo What's Your mix ads that also drew flak?  Was it a marketing strategy? They made this ad for this reason -- FREE publicity by the super sensitive netizens. Expect more ads similar to this.

From Out of the Shadows It Emerged


The FHM March 2012 issue cover was initially uploaded online to tease their avid readers for a possible increase in sales for the coming month. Instead, the latest magazine cover caught a lot of attention from the online universe because of the “racist” implication of the magazine's cover.

The original cover features Bela Padilla, a close relative of Philippine’s action star Robin Padilla, on pink bikini backed-up with dark-skinned models that represents her shadow and which made the Twitterverse go nuts and started hitting multitude of negative statements to the actress and to the publisher of FHM. The posted front page cover of the magazine received enormous complaint and a petition was even made at change.org to call the attention of the magazine publication.

The two girls in the cover photo were actually of Filipino descent who were just painted to look darker. The Philippines culture considers lighter skin to be more beautiful. In the south people have darker skin, and in the north the skin is lighter, probably because of mixing with caucasians. In a country where there are both light and dark people, it would seem that such an artistic expression as the FHM cover would be more readily accepted.

The actress claimed that she has no intentions of raising the “color” issue. I’m so sorry to everyone who got offended. I hope all of you see the beauty of the cover and appreciate it. My cover is supposed to be about stepping out of my shadows, inhibitions, fears, etc., and has nothing to do with race.”
Summit Media on the other hand decided to immediately replace the controversial cover before it hits the retail stores this month. They issued the following statement:

“When FHM hits the stands in March it will have a different cover. We deem this to be the most prudent move in the light of the confusion over the previous cover execution. We apologize and thank those who have raised their points. We apologize to Bela Padilla for any distress this may have caused her. In our pursuit to come up with edgier covers, we will strive to be more sensitive next time.”
Now the cover has only Bela Padilla with the tag line changed to "I Want To Emerge With My Own Name." instead of the original "Stepping Out of the Shadows".

Executive Optical Is A Loser

Truth be told, if you have poor eyes, you can win, but those with healthy ones have more chances to succeed.

Is there nothing racist here but only people who give negative connotations to the ad?

So the premise is "you can spot a loser, or a winner, with your eyes"? Awesome. Classy. Well done. I hope heads roll for this mess.

However, I don't see any racism in the concept of the ad, nor it has to do something with  "WHITE" and "BLACK" guys.

Racism is animosity toward other races: prejudice or animosity against people who belong to other races. Where is racism here?

They're all Filipinos for cripes sakes, it's just that the guy smiling has a darker skin tone and not specifically black. While the guy in like a state of shock isn't even close to being a "WHITE". If I understand it correctly in a humorous, but discriminating manner, the girl's supposed to be with the "CAULIFLOWER GUY" and not with the one with glasses. In my opinion, it states more of DISCRIMINATION than RACISM.

Try Googling for the meaning of  "racist" or "racism".....freaking hipsters and bandwagonners!

Some say the message here is that, because the girl has poor eye sight, she mistakenly see the white boy holding cauliflower, so she chose the black guy with real flower. It's not about the color of the two guys. When you have poor vision, you can still see enough to know if the boy in front of you has dark or white skin. The concept seems to be puzzling..but you would be able to get the point if you analyze the picture closely. It's not racism..it's a strategy for the advertiser to instill into everyone's mind the puzzling meaning of the picture as a whole.

Some also say the guy with the cauliflowers has poor eyesight as well, or both him and the girl has, and only the dark guy is doing well because he is already wearing the EO eyeglasses? .....or the girl chose the dark guy because men wearing glasses seems to look nerdy. As they say in The Big Bang Theory, nerd, or geek,  is indeed the new sexy. So its not discrimination because even a not so good looking dark-skinned  guy can get the girl.

I congratulate those who noticed the cauliflower and the yellow roses. And to those who failed to do so, your prejudice towards this ad overwhelms me!

I wonder if some of the critics had their eyes checked, or am I interpreting the ad all wrong as well?

Ahhh! The horror! This proves that different eyes see different perspectives.

This ad connotes wrong messages on so many levels. The guy is the loser here but it is implied that the girl is on the losing end as well. If the girl has good vision, the dark-skinned guy has to be the loser. Poor ad, backward thinking. Did they do this on purpose?

In the ad, I strongly believe that all the three characters are losers or were a loser. The dark-skinned guy thought that he is a loser because of his vision problem so he got himself a new pair of eyeglasses. The handsome guy is a loser because its either he has a vision problem and did not have his eyes checked or just plain stupid... who would bring a cauliflower as a gift? And for the judgmental lots, the pretty lady is a loser because she chose the not so handsome guy. Who knows maybe the darker-skinned guy is more sensible than the handsome dude. This is how advertising works, they play on words and images. Don't be too sensitive... "Huwag kayong parang sugat, konting sagi lang aray na ng aray."

The FAIL in this ad is not the racism but the ambiguity. It's the fact that the girl is not wearing glasses either which could lead for the audience to believe that the girl could be the point of interest.

Final Note:

Racism has nothing to do with these ads. It's just that some people are just giving malicious meanings to them. Be positive! I could reiterate that, it's not our eyes that should be checked, but it's the mind, on how we interpret things.

The problem is we are promoting negative values to our society. I think all people in the marketing or advertising industry should be sensitive on this. I know we are selling the product but please check your values!

These are indeed very EFFECTIVE ads. It made people talk about them.

So, who are the LOSERS here?

We are, because we fell for it.