'Ethnicity is authenticity': how America got addicted to racist branding
How do we make advertising and branding less racist? For Jason Chambers, an associate professor of advertising at the University of Illinois, this question has driven his life’s work.
As reckonings around racism in the US grow, a new focus has emerged: decolonizing the American supermarket. Last week, a bevy of multinational food and drink conglomerates, including PepsiCo (which owns Aunt Jemima) and ConAgra Foods (which owns Mrs Butterworth’s), announced major changes to brands that many shoppers have long felt uncomfortable supporting. These include Aunt Jemima, who many have long argued is a racist “mammy figure”, the “happy black cook” figurehead on Uncle Ben’s rice (owned by Mars Inc), and the perceived racist packaging of
Mrs Butterworth’s. Cream of Wheat has also announced a review of its mascot.
But what about the other legacy entities in America popularized through harmful images? Land O’Lakes butter retired its indigenous maiden character in April, but will the Washington Redskins change their mascot?
Here, Chambers, the author of Madison Avenue and the Color Line: African Americans in the Advertising Industry, addresses branding built on harmful stereotypes and what needs to happen next.
What was your reaction to the news of Aunt Jemima changing its name and packaging? My immediate reaction was relief. It’s an absolute shame that it took them this long.
The racist ideologies and caricatures embedded in Aunt Jemima have long been criticized. Why do you believe PepsiCo was so resistant to the change?Quite honestly, they’ve had the money and the brand visibility to withstand it. Until now. When you’re talking about changing a brand name or
trade character, you’re talking about magnitudes of change. Things companies have spent decades and tens of millions of dollars establishing. So who wants to be the first person to walk into the room and say, ‘You know the decision I think you should make for social or humanistic reasons?’ Then, with this current movement, PepsiCo saw that maybe the brand wouldn’t withstand the current sociopolitical conversations happening.
Did you think other brands, including Uncle Ben’s and Mrs Butterworth’s, would follow as quickly as they did?Once the biggest domino has fallen, the one that’s the most visible, people will then gradually move down the food chain and ask, “What other brands are conveying similar racist imagery?” Is there historical precedent when it comes to a high-selling brand making large-scale changes to become less “problematic”? The one my mind jumps back to immediately – when discussing parallels of trade characters – is the Frito Bandito character PepsiCo had from 1967 to 1971. Frito Bandito played into these stereotypes of a sombrerowearing, Mexican cowboy who robbed people of their Fritos. Mexican American activists spoke out against Bandito and it took about four years for the character to finally be retired. There were some strong similarities between Frito Bandito and Aunt Jemima in that both were recognizable, popular, and a success in the eyes of the advertising and marketing sectors.
Why does the food sector in particular have such a race problem?I call it “ethnicity as authenticity”. If you consider a stereotype as something being based in a perception such as “black people aren’t good at anything but music, cooking, and sports”, there is a certain authenticity that comes with that perception. So you take the myth of the south and the happy black woman cooking for the white family, and suddenly you have a product that gains more “authenticity” through that image and, as a result, sells more.
Is there another product or brand that should be nervous right now? I hope a sports team like the Washington Redskins will stop standing behind a line like, “Well, this is what we’ve always been called.” That they look at these other brands and see they can withstand a name change. No one is going to forget you are based in Washington or what you’ve been named. But you can be called something else. My question is, why fight it any longer? Why not get on the right side of this discussion and be held up as an example of a company or organization that finally listened to consumers?
Various brands have posted statements in support of Black Lives Matter. Do you view this as a positive development? I hope the words of these companies are matched by their deeds. And by that I mean doing more than donating money. It’s about opening up opportunities for recruitment, retention, promotion within the company and asking hard questions of yourself. Otherwise, the statements are just empty words. So if you post a statement, you better be prepared to make changes within your organization. Should black consumers be wary of Black Lives Matter being coopted by brands in a similar fashion to Pride?I hope the movement stays organic to activists and the people who have been part of it from the very beginning. Having these companies join the conversation helps, in a way. It normalizes the argument of the movement. It shows we are united on this topic and that there is a problem regarding the problem of race and policing.
But after posting a viral statement is when the hard work starts. When I tell you, OK, to change this, this is going to cost a lot of money and cause a cultural change and be a lot of hard work – now how do you feel about it? That’s when we’ll see if real change takes place or not.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity