Just a quick follow-up to my last post, which touched on a questionable Super Bowl ad featuring cartoon pandas speaking in dubious Asian accents.
According the New York Times, the ad has been withdrawn with an apology from Vinod Gupta, the head honcho at InfoUSA, the parent of Salesgenie.com. It’s a good article, detailing how Gupta has been the brains behind the commercials over the past couple of years and the reaction from audience tests of the ads (as part of the Super Bowl ad extravaganza).
The NYT article also discusses humor and race in advertising. It’s a fine line and it’s one that appears to be easier to cross as time goes by. Is it still safe to mix humor and race in advertising and programming and still be entertaining/effective?