Stereotypes In MCDonald"s Advertising

 

                                              Stereotypes In MCDonald"s Advertising



   For years i have always asked myself, why the commercials i see on a networks such as BET are drastically different from commercials that appear on networks like ABC or NBC. When i say drastically different i am referring to the types of commercials that are shown and the manor they are shown in. For example, when i watch BET, which is a network that has been geared towards the African American audience, i cant help but recognize that most of the advertising done on this network is redundant. Instead of seeing a variety of different adds that advertise for different things, most of the commercials always the same types of commercials. I found this to be correct after watching an hour of BET.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4tLP335h68






   After an hour of watching i observed that there where five basic types of commercials being shown. The Mcdonalds commericals, The trade school commercials, bad credit commericials, bail bonds, and diabetes commercials. However, when I watch networks such as ABC I found much more variety of advertisements and didnt see any of the commercials I saw on BET. After observing this I found it obvious that this was taking place by desighn and not by coincidence. The main thing I observed was that the commercials on BET were extremely stereotypical and were very one dimensional. For example, all of the Mcdonalds commercials that I watched on BET were overly dramatic and depicted African Americans as either overly comical or street savy. The music being played is almost always a corny Hip Hop track instead of the music played in other Mcdonalds commercials. The people in the add are of course all black and they seem to be way too excited about McDonald's, so much they make raps about how good their Mcdonalds tastes.

         Now there is definitely nothing wrong with black people being in McDonalds commercials but it is little over the top to see black people hip hoped out or to be comical in every commercial.  These types of adds actually perpetuate negative stereotypes of African Americans and use stereotypical themes without discretion to sell to their desired audiences. Meanwhile, on networks like ABC the Mcdonalds commercials feature white actors and more serious themes with less commical dialog. The MD commercials on ABC definitely do not contain any hip hop tracks or hip hop slang like the other commercials on BET. Also, many blacks are rarely featured on commercials that appear on ABC. Most of the MD commercials on ABC feature people that are not black and the commercials are a little more realistic and less comical. They are completely different than the commercials shown on BET. It is obvious that when you are marketing to a specific audience it is smart to relate to that audience but i do not understand why the quality of the commercials shown on BET are less than the ones shown on ABC. Why is this? Stereotypes. Stereotypes are always infused within advertisements. Some times stereotypes can be affective, but sometimes they can also can also can be offensive. However i feel that the stereotypical MD commercials are not so much offensive but that they just are not taken serious. I personally believe that the MD commercials on BET use more stereotypes. This is no surprise to me because at has been normal for black people to be shown acting out stereotypes in not only commercials but also in films as well. I don't think its a big deal but i do believe that MD needs to make sure all commercials for MD are of equal quality.