"utterly moronic racist nonsense" - Strutt & Parker Notting Hill estate agents advertising

[Rocket no.9]

That's all, folks!!

Strutt & Parker pulls advertising campaign after complaints

http://t.co/3hJdG9yJFO

 

[editor]

N

That's all, folks!!

Strutt & Parker pulls advertising campaign after complaints

http://t.co/3hJdG9yJFO

Maybe there still is the issue of their curiously all white staffing levels to attend to?

 

[Pickman's model]

N
Maybe there still is the issue of their curiously all white staffing levels to attend to?

this will run & run

 

[ddraig]

Yesterday afternoon, a spokesperson from Strutt & Parker said: “We are aware that we have encountered some negative feedback with regards to one of our local advertising campaigns in Notting Hill.

“This campaign was developed to reflect the amazing diversity and vibrancy of the Notting Hill area.

"vibrancy"

 

[butchersapron]

Entrepreneurs.

 

[Treacle Toes]

“This campaign was developed to reflect the amazing diversity and vibrancy of the Notting Hill area.

“To produce the advertising campaign we worked with three popular and local entrepreneurs who appeared in the adverts: a dance teacher, a chef and an interior designer.

“They are all real people just like our estate agents who work in Notting Hill.

Anyone seen the other two?

 

[Rocket no.9]

Anyone seen the other two?

 

[ddraig]

did an image search and nothing coming up
loads about their big budget for advertising tho

 

[Blagsta]

"vibrancy"

Wankers

 

[ViolentPanda]

"These fuckers can't afford to live here any more, so move here!" *Beaming estate agent*

An attitude only too obviously reflected in the increasing prohibitions put on Carnival.

 

[MrSki]

It is easy to register on the Property Industry Eye and continue or repeat the arguments from here.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Suited white man whose specific employment means he is widely distrusted and generally abhorred .. more like ..

As always you're missing the point. Sometimes, I suspect, deliberately, because no-one could actually be as naive as you present yourself as, and have survived to adulthood.
The advert is targeted. To the people the advert is targeted at - i.e. home-buyers - an estate agent isn't the pond-scum the rest of us view them as, they're a facilitator. presenting a white male, suited and booted, to exemplify that facilitator sends a message. Using a black person as the antithesis (in the conventional sense) to that message also sends a message. Attempting, as the ad does, to "naturalise" the roles of each person also sends a message.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Rubbish. There is a reason estate agents, especially those peddling expensive housing to rich people, wear suits. You must always at least match in formality the clothing of your clients. You should know this.

There's also a reason the estate agent in the ad is white, outside of any binary opposition between white estate agent and black dancer that's been set up. It's because advertisers know that "black man in a primary assertive role" generates as much discomfort as it does approbation, and to the market Shitte & PIssflap are trying sell into - affluent white middle England - it would signify "the world turned upside-down".

 

[ViolentPanda]

As you and a couple of others have pointed out plenty of times in this thread, the preconceptions of the viewers of the advert affect its meaning to them. Estate agents are trusted less than politicians.

It's not about preconceptions, it's about the fact that images in adverts signify particular messages - act as shorthand for them, if you will - and as I've made clear, to the market that ad is aimed at, estate agents aren't rat-fink motherfuckers, they're facilitators of the residential ambitions of that market.

 

[DotCommunist]

i now expect all the pc gone mad people will come back to this thread and admit that they might have been wrong. Because that allways happens.

 

[weltweit]

It's not about preconceptions, it's about the fact that images in adverts signify particular messages - act as shorthand for them, if you will - and as I've made clear, to the market that ad is aimed at, estate agents aren't rat-fink motherfuckers, they're facilitators of the residential ambitions of that market.

As it happens, I have been a house buyer and a house seller, even then estate agents rated as scum, I had to line up three against each other before I got a cost rate I was prepared to work with!

And preconceptions do make a big difference, the components of the ad conveyed different things to different people on this very thread!

 

[ViolentPanda]

If the public don't perceive this "field of signification" it has no effect.

You really don't have a clue what you're talking about. Advertising works on the basis that an image carries more than a single message - that an image doesn't just signify its' base meaning of "this is a basket of green beans", that the image also signifies freshness, health and nature, as well as a host of other things.
You're confusing the fact that you find signification irrelevant or incomprehensible with the known fact of the effectiveness of manipulating signification in advertising.

 

[Treacle Toes]

As it happens, I have been a house buyer and a house seller, even then estate agents rated as scum, I had to line up three against each other before I got a cost rate I was prepared to work with!

And preconceptions do make a big difference, the components of the ad conveyed different things to different people on this very thread!

No, I think it's more that some people here have a greater interest/awareness of how advertising works, plus can deconstruct an ad and place its narrative in context better than others.

 

[weltweit]

No, I think it's more that some people here have a greater interest/awareness of how advertising works, plus can deconstruct an ad and place its narrative in context better than others.

Well, I disagree.

 

[ViolentPanda]

As it happens, I have been a house buyer and a house seller, even then estate agents rated as scum, I had to line up three against each other before I got a cost rate I was prepared to work with!

And preconceptions do make a big difference, the components of the ad conveyed different things to different people on this very thread!

That's bugger all to do with preconceptions, and everything to do with some people having the skill to "read" adverts, and others not. As littlebabyjesus remarked, this stuff about signification, it's secondary school sociology stuff that a few of you seem to have missed out on, because the rest of the posters on the thread pretty much all arrived at the same opinion, so "different things to different people" is overstating the amount of difference in views. The difference is a simple binary opposition.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Well, I disagree.

Well, you would.

 

[MrSki]

The International Business Times are also running the story where comments can be left too.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/strutt-parker-racist-advert-dancing-black-man-withdrawn-1475952

 

[weltweit]

That's bugger all to do with preconceptions, and everything to do with some people having the skill to "read" adverts, and others not. As littlebabyjesus remarked, this stuff about signification, it's secondary school sociology stuff that a few of you seem to have missed out on, because the rest of the posters on the thread pretty much all arrived at the same opinion, so "different things to different people" is overstating the amount of difference in views. The difference is a simple binary opposition.

Perhaps you are aware the communication process for a message, goes like this:

1. Message conception
2. Message encoding
3. Message transmission
4. Noise
5. Message reception
6. Message decoding
7. message reception

Message encoding and decoding relies on values morals, languages, preconceptions of the sender and receiver, if the sender wants their message to be understood as intended by its recipients they have to encode it using the values morals, languages, and preconceptions of their intended recipient otherwise it will not convey the meaning the sender intended.

Simplistically speaking, sending a message in French to a non French speaking English audience would be a waste of time and money.

Preconceptions of sender and receiver, do matter.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

As it happens, I have been a house buyer and a house seller, even then estate agents rated as scum, I had to line up three against each other before I got a cost rate I was prepared to work with!

And preconceptions do make a big difference, the components of the ad conveyed different things to different people on this very thread!

Right, so despite thinking they're scum, you still worked with one.

As for your second sentence, I really don't know what you're getting at. The ad conveyed exactly the same thing to most of us on this thread.

 

[Blagsta]

Perhaps you are aware the communication process for a message, goes like this:

1. Message conception
2. Message encoding
3. Message transmission
4. Noise
5. Message reception
6. Message decoding
7. message reception

Message encoding and decoding relies on values morals, languages, preconceptions of the sender and receiver, if the sender wants their message to be understood as intended by its recipients they have to encode it using the values morals, languages, and preconceptions of their intended recipient otherwise it will not convey the meaning the sender intended.

Simplistically speaking, sending a message in French to a non French speaking English audience would be a waste of time and money.

Preconceptions of sender and receiver, do matter.

Where do those preconceptions come from?

 

[weltweit]

Where do those preconceptions come from?

In the case of both sender and receiver, from their life's experiences mainly.

 

[weltweit]

Right, so despite thinking they're scum, you still worked with one.

For a very low price yes.

As for your second sentence, I really don't know what you're getting at. The ad conveyed exactly the same thing to most of us on this thread.

I am not sure it did, it got many people's hackles up immediately while some, a minority, didn't immediately see serious racism there. In my case I am happy to go along with others because I believe their spidey senses are probably more honed on the racism front than mine, but initially I just saw a dancer and an estate agent, and I liked the dancer more than the estate agent (because as I have mentioned, estate agents are scum) which made me wonder why they had crafted such an odd advert.

 

[Treacle Toes]

For a very low price yes.



I am not sure it did, it got many people's hackles up immediately while some, a minority, didn't immediately see serious racism there.

Surely you mean 'overt'... all racism is serious.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Perhaps you are aware the communication process for a message, goes like this:

1. Message conception
2. Message encoding
3. Message transmission
4. Noise
5. Message reception
6. Message decoding
7. message reception

Message encoding and decoding relies on values morals, languages, preconceptions of the sender and receiver, if the sender wants their message to be understood as intended by its recipients they have to encode it using the values morals, languages, and preconceptions of their intended recipient otherwise it will not convey the meaning the sender intended.

Simplistically speaking, sending a message in French to a non French speaking English audience would be a waste of time and money.

Preconceptions of sender and receiver, do matter.

Thanks for the GCSE-level explanation. here's one for you: Advertising isn't a message in the way that a written text is, it is deliberately designed to have multiple meanings, meanings that often are designed not to be overt, that are designed to signify meanings to particular groups of viewers.

 

[weltweit]

Surely you mean 'overt'... all racism is serious.

Ok