Mixed race couples on tv ads **Mod Warning in Post #556**

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120794618#Comment_120794618

D&I is a priority over profitability in most large companies now, especially the ones who make huge profits and can take the financial hit of such policies. Anyone who works in a multinational will be aware of the bizarre fakery, reduction in efficiency and wasting of money.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793548#Comment_120793548

That 35% (the internet is mostly calling it 40%) figure looked dodgy to me. I either took it to mean that lots of old banknotes had been destroyed and replaced by a new print run, or that there had been a massive, massive amount of new banknotes printed and put into circulation. It turns out that it was neither, but just a new way devised in May 2020 of measuring the dollars in "existence".

The actual number and value new banknotes printed seems to have remained fairly stable over the last number of years.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL

https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_currency_orders.htm#:~:text=Currency%20and%20Coin%20Services&text=The%20revised%20print%20order%20increases,of%201.3%20to%201.4%20percent.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120794677#Comment_120794677

Diversity drives profitability.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2021/12/20/three-tips-for-boosting-business-profits-how-investing-in-diversity-increases-profitability/

https://hbr.org/2018/07/the-other-diversity-dividend

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/03/03/harnessing-the-power-of-diversity-for-profitability/

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120794237#Comment_120794237

"I think i know 3 mixed race couples" is another way you could have phrased that, to be fair.

i don't know anyone from tyrone, but if i did, i wouldn't say 'i only know one person from tyrone' if i saw one on telly.

anyway, the question would be, what should the advertisers do? only feature white irish couples? and/or only feature non-white couples? because the question 'why shouldn't advertisers advertise to non-white people by featuring them in ads?' would raise that question.

Ramasun

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120794677#Comment_120794677

I like diversity and inclusivity.

How can you be pleased if acknowledging others offends you?

If someone is intruding on you you're within your rights to object.

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120795257#Comment_120795257

Yes, this is the propaganda pushed in all the multinationals. When you see it implemented in the real world it look very different. It can only work if truly the best are given jobs. That does not mean hiring immigrants locally, it means going overseas to recruit the best of other countries and only then bringing them into the country. Preferentially recruiting immigrants already in the country does the opposite.

The real world practice is lazy, same as the ads, it’s intentional and box ticking.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120795363#Comment_120795363

Do you think you might be guilty of a slight generalisation there, to say the “the real world practice is lazy”? Like most practices, there are good, bad and ugly ways of doing things. Some corporates do things well, others not so well. Honestly, this is more about your personal hang ups than about corporate practices.

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120795707#Comment_120795707

Not true, I have worked in multinationals for years. They have very rapidly aligned with each other in recent years. I have experience before D&I was a thing, of working with many people hired abroad and brought in, this was the norm and great for many reasons. That still happens but has been swamped with the new D&I practices of hiring immigrants preferentially, regardless of suitability for the position.

Anyone that works in a multinational will know exactly what I am talking about. These exact policies are driving what is happening in these ads. It’s for show not to increase profits.

Ramasun

I'm not comfortable listening to a Kerry accent on the Sunday Game.

pgj2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkZQfBQSAco

Rockshore have been watching this thread.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120795836#Comment_120795836

I worked in multinationals for years too, and I'm still in touch with many colleagues in multinationals. They tell a very different story to you.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120795257#Comment_120795257

Causation is just as likely to be reversed there, profitable companies can afford to be woke.

TokenJogger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120795257#Comment_120795257

I'm afraid you're wrong on that, the phrase

"Go Woke, Go Broke"

is well earned at this stage, have a look at how well Disney and Bud Light are doing #MicDrop

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797618#Comment_120797618

They haven’t gone broke though. I know the MAGAs love their catchphrases but the reality is slightly different.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797842#Comment_120797842

Choosing your moments to get literal , for it to be successful you would need to demonstrate that they added to their profits by going down these routes instead of it costing profits and brand damage

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797957#Comment_120797957

No. It doesn't have to be successful every time it is tried; it just has to be successful more often than not. The validity of a slogan like "Go Woke Go Broke" is not proven by pointing to one or two instances of a company getting blowback from adopting a progressive stance; you have to look at the overall experience.

Brand management is an art, not a science. Brand owners put a lot of thought, a lot of research and a lot of money into positioning their brand where they think it will be most successful. Sometimes this costs them money; Adidas dropped Yeezy at a short-term cost of $250 million rather than be associated with his distinctly unwoke antisemitism, but they obviously calculated that the long-term damage to their brand if they remained associated with him would be more than that. And of course sometimes they get it wrong; Donald Trump floated Truth Social as an unwoke alternative to Twitter, and it has been a commercial disaster; shares in its parent company, floated at $94.20, now trade at $12.56.

On the whole, though, companies seem to get this right more often than they get it wrong. They certainly get it right more often that is realised; Disney, cited by TokenJogger as a company that has gone woke and gone broke, is in fact enjoying record revenues; attempts to organise a boycott of its services have failed miserably (and not for the first time; Disney has been here before). Nike was targetted a few years ago by the snowflakes for its sponsorship deal with Colin Kaepernick, the athlete who "took the knee" as a protest against racial injustice; both sales and profit boomed.

Etc, etc. Few, if any, of the companies held up as instances of going woke and going broke actually go broke; most in fact are seen to have profited from their wokery.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120798084#Comment_120798084

large companies tend to be immune to boycotts etc , Gillette for example a few years back. You mention Disney but their movies have lost their way a bit as they seem to want to lecture audiences instead of just making the best audience pleasing films, they damaged their Star Wars brand and others , generating good comedy in the process. Plus either we live and work in a competitive workplace or companies decide not to hire or promote the best people which couldnt but cost companies productivity.

https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1675640539524345856

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120798124#Comment_120798124

If companies are "immune to boycotts" then obviously the "Go Woke Go Broke" slogan is simply false.

It may be your artistic judgment that Disney movies have "lost their way" a bit, but it hasn't hit the commercial bottom line; Disney revenues declined in 2020 when cinema admissions were hugely down for reasons that you will recall, but they have risen strongly every years since then and are now more than 30% above their pre-pandemic level.

There are, in fact, examples of effective boycotts, but they are mostly boycotts organised by progressives, rather than by conservatives. (Perhaps progressives are just better at these things?) A 2018 boycott of the NRA was instrumental in bringing it to bankruptcy in 2021, for instance. And in 2016, when North Carolina enacted a law (a) blocking local governments from passing protections for the LGBTQ community, and (b) requiring transgender people to use the bathroom of the sex they were assigned at birth, a boycott cost the state an estimated $3.7 billion in travel, tourism, convention, sporting and film production business; the law was duly repealed.

But bear in mind that the main purpose of boycotts is usually not to change the minds of the person or business boycotted, but to influence public opinion. Not many segregated restaurants closed when boycotted by civil rights protestors in the US in the 1950s and ' 60s, for example, but public opinion was effectviely mobilised and the Civil Rights Act was enacted.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120798279#Comment_120798279

this all kicked off from memory around the time of the female reboot of the Ghostbusters , with the if you dont like the movie you are a misogynist, the movie lost that studio (dont remember who made it now) between $50m-$100m so it was perfectly apt to use the phrase "go woke go broke" and there has been a whole stream of films and TV shows since that fit the moniker, to be honest I can think of a single film seen as woke to blow the box office away whereas something un-woke like Top Gun or Super Mario actually did blow the box office out of the water.

With Disney again massive company, theme parks , streaming , movies , merch . they are far to big to go broke but they have certainly left money on the table.

these 2 Disney films for instance got tagged as being woke films before they were released. Now I dont think online chatter can affect a film , but if the film makers go out of their way to make a woke film , they just tend to be worse for it and potential customers just ignore them.

Just to add, Disney just fired 7,000 this year so whatever combination of reasons there were , they aint thriving

https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1647311232125288448

Peregrinus

Silverharp, just because some half-wit denounces the idea of female ghostbusters as "woke", it doesn't follow that the reason the movie tanked was because of a mass boycott by millions who agree with that slightly demented view. Have you considered that maybe the movie was just not as good as the first film? Bear in mind that, of the four Ghostbusters movies, it's actually the second-highest grossing; Ghostbusters II and Ghostbusters: Afterlife did worse again, despite casting all-male ghostbusters. There may be more going on here than the fringe preoccupations of people obsessed with wokery.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120798424#Comment_120798424

not sure if you are inflation adjusting when comparing films over decades but I think I said they werent boycotting , just that woke films tend to have particular elements that make the films less watchable, so the public isnt thinking oh a woke film Im not going, they just end up in the category of not worth seeing. And sure some films just dont do well when everyone agrees it was a decent effort. But surely they should be giving themselves the best chance. There are objective things that make films good or bad, a hero arc etc. , likable characters etc.

Peregrinus

People obsessed with wokery tend to denounce Hollywood as one of the wokest places around. From their point of view, most Hollywood films are woke, the successful as well as the unsuccessful. Pointing to individual unsuccessful films can therefore do little to demonstrate that wokeness is unappealing to audiences, since it will be easy to find equally or more woke films that are successful. For example, Disney's Wakanda franchise features exclusively black superheroes from Africa; how much more woke can you get? But the films are phenomenally successful. Avatar has a strong environmentalist message, and a pointed critique of American imperialism; it's the most commercially successful film of all time.

Social conservatives love to tell themselves — and the rest of us — that they represent the silent majority, and that huge numbers of people are averse to purchasing goods and services that they deem "woke". On both counts, they delude themselves.

NIMAN

I remember having a chuckle to myself when watching Strange World with the kids.

It ticked so many boxes inside the 1st few minutes of screen time.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120798575#Comment_120798575

woke doesnt mean having black people or women in movies , the "anti woke" people have been saying forever to make original movies , Wakanda is one of those. Just stop taking old movies and rebooting gender and race swaps

Personally I'd love a Zulu movie or TV series form their point of view , but Hollywood prefers tokenism

Avatar Ive not seen but I gather it has decent values , a father trying to protect his family

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120798575#Comment_120798575

worth pointing out that hollywood often churns out the 'government man bad, muscled army or ex-army guy acting outside any jurisdiction good' hero/superhero/antihero movies. which are a libertarian wet dream in many ways.

realdanbreen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793398#Comment_120793398

By "culchification " do you mean you'd prefer if they spoke in long drawn out Duuubblin accents, or maybe those D4 private school makey up accents like the RTE knobs who were before the Dail last week were using.

PowerToWait

I'm sure it's already been mentioned, but it's funny the same people giving out about an over representation of minorities on TV are also moaning about the country being over run with immigrants.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797957#Comment_120797957

Why would brands be damaged by such initiatives?

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120798815#Comment_120798815

Most I assume fall in to the category of no measurable effect, But the recent Bud Light debacle with Dylan Mulvaney has shown there are downside risks, the marketing manager was fired I think and sales dropped. Thats on the marketing side , then all these ESG/DEI initiatives dont come cheap, so are they worth it? Like I said in my post up the way, I think the causality is that very profitable companies can afford these programs and consultants whereas struggling companies wouldnt suddenly become more profitable.

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793384#Comment_120793384

something about George Soros, WEF, Woke, Virtue Signalling and Klaus Schwab...