My brother Andy wrote this after becoming very frustrated about the recent controversy over Intel's ad that caused so much hooplah. I enjoyed it.
Intel's "mistake"
Intel recently released a formal apology for a “culturally insensitive and insulting” ad that was printed in magazines and released on the internet. Don MacDonald, vice president of sales and marketing and director of global marketing, was the one who spearhead the statement.
I found out about this through
www.pcgamer.com prior to my discovering of the offensive ad. Editor in Chief of PC Gamer, Greg Vederman, had a small tidbit to say before redirecting the web-viewers to the official Intel Apology. It mostly consisted of him saying that as in all magazines, the editors don’t really know which ads are going where until the magazines ship. In short, PC Gamer knew nothing about the “culturally insensitive and insulting” ad featured in their October issue. No problem there.
My problem is with Intel’s formal apology (below is the link to Intel’s official apology to the public).
"We made a bad mistake. I know why and how, but that simply doesn't make it better."
People read magazines,
That is a given. Done. Finished. Caput.
Unbeknownst to me, apparently, there are two types of people that read magazines. First, there are the rational ones. These are the people that pick up a magazine and read the pages, and enjoy its content. People in this ‘second group’ have a very different experience when reading material in a magazine. Apparently, some politically correct assholes, who have nothing better to do with their life than strive to make the world a better place to live in (ahem……sarcasm) found out about this and contacted Intel about how offended they were about the image.
As to avoid any disputes about what is in the ad (pictured left), let’s break it down.
-One (1) pale white man standing on an office floor.
-Six (6) cubicles with-
-One (1) black sprinter obviously duplicated into each one surrounding the white man as to indicate maximum power and performance through using Intel’s products. (Does anyone remember The 1936 Olympic runner Jesse Owens, who burned Hitler with his amazing running skills? Could this be a throwback?)
This is the intended message that Intel was trying to send:
“The intent behind our ad campaign "Multiply Computing Performance and Maximize the Power of Your Employees" was to convey the performance capabilities of our processors through a number of visual metaphors.”
- Don MacDonald, vice president of sales and marketing and director of global marketing.
“Visual FUCKING Metaphors”. Ronald…er Don MacDonald, also had this to say:
“ Unfortunately, while we have used a visual of sprinters in the past appropriately (See Jesse left!) , this ad of using African-American sprinters did not deliver our intended message and in fact proved to be culturally insensitive and insulting.” << Copout.
Intel’s intent was innocent and harmless; as they were just doing what they stated had worked as an ad before. Why change what was effective in the past? Oh, that’s right, because America is full of whinny-ass people who have nothing better to do than complain and bitch about minute, insignificant details in something as trivial as a magazine……anger…passing…alright, back to my balanced report of this worthy news detail.
In a literal sense, all Intel was pointing out was the supremacy of its products over its competitors, (whether or not that is true, I don’t care). They were not pointing out the supremacy of the pasty white man over the black athletes. After some digging, apparently most people’s beef with the ad was that it subtly portrayed black people as only physical beings, and inferior to white workers (hence them running while pasty faced Joe kicked back with that stupid smirk).
This whole instance would be viewed in a different air if the ad was made up all white runners, with a Chinese man in the middle, or any number of random race combinations. America has been, and is still very (wrongly) sensitive to issues like this. The only way to move on, is to grow up. The color of the skin had nothing to do with the ad. If people want to stop discrimination, they have to pick fights where that is actually an issue, and not a simple image used to sell computer parts.
In the end, Intel never should have issued an apology for this ad; but sadly had too, lest it become the target of the media, and eventually lose millions in sales for being marked racist and uncaring to the concerns of Ethnic America.
