This Is How You Market To Black Men...

[Obreh Winfrey]

If it isn't about respectability then where are the tradespeople in the commercial? You can make a 100k 4 years out of high school as a pipefitter, electrician, or carpenter and those jobs are plentiful and don't ask you to go into debt for a degree. Like I said the black boy to astronaut commercial could have been made without brow beating of athletics.

You act like black boys are the only ones with sports heroes or dreams of playing professional ball.

The difference is the kid with dreams of being the next Wayne Gretzky lives in a 5-star district with 12 students to every teacher.

It isn't about black boys being deluded this is about the failure of institutions and structural racism. Even the unemployment rate for black graduates is double that of white graduates.

You got a commercial co-signed by all these Fortune 500 companies and no pledge for scholarships or anything of the sort from them?

Who says being a tradesperson is not respectable? You're the only one drawing that comparison. The commercial isn't talking down athletes either. The point of the commercial is that there are multiple avenues out there in life outside of playing ball. Of course other demographics have sports heros they aspire to be, but they also have more media representation than primarily sports. Why are you so upset with the commercial?

 

[FromStLouis]

Who says being a tradesperson is not respectable? You're the only one drawing that comparison. The commercial isn't talking down athletes either. The point of the commercial is that there are multiple avenues out there in life outside of playing ball. Of course other demographics have sports heros they aspire to be, but they also have more media representation than primarily sports. Why are you so upset with the commercial?

Media representation is about imaging and respectability. Clean safe neighborhoods and access to good schools are about astronauts and neurosurgeons.

It perpetuates the idea/image that black boys are obsessed with being pro athletes to a fault and need to be "steered" toward something else, as you alluded to in your anecdotal example.

It places athletics as the impediment to our lack of participation in other fields.

It comes across to me as "there aren't more black astronauts and neurosurgeons because they're too busy dreaming about sports."

It's distracting when it simply could have been Alvin Drew speaking to a group of black boys about being an Astronaut. The same commercial little girls got.

 

[Neuromancer]

This was nice.

 

[O.T.I.S.]

Black women don't like astronauts or doctors though

Damn……


Dope commercial though

 

[315]

ya'll ain't crying

 

[Caponeflowers]

That was a beautiful commercial

 

[Ya' Cousin Cleon]

Too many people on this site have a low sense of self and project that onto all black males. It’s sad to see. Don’t raise kids to have the same self limitations you do. There is no one path to success and your path may not look like those of other ethnicities, and maybe it shouldn’t

Yup!

 

[AQz]

That was petty dope

 

[$cam-U-Well_Jack$on]

Dope as fukk.

 

[O³ (O cubed)]

I was really into the ad. Then I see Proctor and Gamble. Like what breh uses Head and Shoulders?

 

[Lonj]

He should not be one. Shouldn't even be an option. We dont need any more artists.


Please take a look at all the ethnic groups succeeding both domestically and internationally. How many of them are known for being artists? Is it the artists controlling the world? This is my issue with it.


Art is cool as a hobby, not a profession.

Fine art like dude in the commercial maybe, but commercial art like comic book type stuff, like the Blacksands breh is doing, I don't see us doing that all that much. Milestone comics was a long time ago. Manga in Japan is a billion dollar industry, there's quite a bit of money there nowadays especially with the advent of crowdfunding.

 

[jadillac]

Ehhh, I wish they'd do these commercials with more realistic goals. The professions they mentioned, a surgeon, an artist, an astronaut, etc., very few people end up in those careers.

Even if you don't make it you can still end up in a great place.

If you don't make the NFL you don't really have a ton of football options

 

[TM101]

If it isn't about respectability then where are the tradespeople in the commercial? You can make a 100k 4 years out of high school as a pipefitter, electrician, or carpenter and those jobs are plentiful and don't ask you to go into debt for a degree. Like I said the black boy to astronaut commercial could have been made without brow beating of athletics.

You act like black boys are the only ones with sports heroes or dreams of playing professional ball.

The difference is the kid with dreams of being the next Wayne Gretzky lives in a 5-star district with 12 students to every teacher.

It isn't about black boys being deluded this is about the failure of institutions and structural racism. Even the unemployment rate for black graduates is double that of white graduates.

You got a commercial co-signed by all these Fortune 500 companies and no pledge for scholarships or anything of the sort from them?

yeah, this commercial is decadent veil nonsense that promotes "black excellence" without addressing the reasons why black boys think entertainment is the only viable career path

 

[PortCityProphet]

Yall so lame gah damm

This dont make me want to buy a product.
If you got to rely on proctor and fukkin gamble to tell your black son he can be anything he wants you already lost.
This shyt is the exact same as every black history program in elementary schools across the country where they tell you to pick someone and write a paragraph report on them and yall eating this shyt up its understandable cause this is the result of not having many positive black male images in media, so they can throw out something positive and boom they look like they give af and are geniuses. Its not rocket science.

You wanna know how to actually market to black men? Show them using your products and have black branding. Have products dedicated to black men along with a positive example.
It's a nice "commercial" for the message they showing but this dont make me wanna go out and buy head and shoulders and Vaseline

 

[FromStLouis]

yeah, this commercial is decadent veil nonsense that promotes "black excellence" without addressing the reasons why black boys think entertainment is the only viable career path

The whole commercial pivots on white paternalism telling his kid to take care of those hands.

Dad saw it as a microaggression and now his kid has to be the black Neil Armstrong.

It's a commercial about not wanting his kid to be seen a certain way.

It's internalized resentment that society at large has towards black male athletes.