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

[Pickman's model]

What's that suspicion based on?

his gut

 

[editor]

Ooh, they've got pots of money for their advertising - and a big agency behind them:

Strutt & Parker, the property company, is running a review of its creative advertising arrangements, ahead of a push to become the "go-to" brand in the market.

The business, which is an independent estate agent and property consultant, has issued a brief to agencies incorporating advertising and digital work. Creativebrief is running the review.

The planned media spend is believed to be in the region of £1.5 million.

Strutt & Parker currently works with the independent agency Them London and SAS, which is part of Publicis Groupe, on its creative advertising.

It claims to have more than £3.5 billion worth of residential properties on its books and 24,000 applicants actively looking for property.
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/1193821/

 

[MrSki]

Even if it was a London wide advert, the company has profiles for 138 employees at its head office. They are all white. Why use a black man in an advert if you seem to not want to employ anyone who is not white? They claim to have a diversity policy but it has not got round to having staff that reflect the city where they work.

 

[Pickman's model]

Ooh, they've got pots of money for their advertising - and a big agency behind them:

with £3.5bn of property on their books you'd have thought they could hire at least one black, brown or yellow person.

 

[salem]

What's that suspicion based on?

Simple fucking logic. An advert for a local branch is going to have limited resources compared to an advert to be syndicated nationwide. It's not fucking rocket science.

 

[Pickman's model]

Simple fucking logic. An advert for a local branch is going to have limited resources then an advert to be syndicated nationwide. It's not fucking rocket science.

more limited resources than surely.

 

[salem]

I really don't know what to say, just to add that the advert is shocking.
Try looking at it and mentally swapping the skin colour of the men, perhaps make them female too... that would have made a more interesting campaign...


Some Notting Hill folk were born to dance

Others to sell flats

The guy they chose is the artistic director of a local dance charity. It wouldn't make sense if they chose a random white woman.

 

[salem]

more limited resources than surely.

Yes - thanks! I'll edit accordingly!

 

[weltweit]

Is it possible some bright whizz thought a controversial advert in Notting Hill could garner more publicity because of the viral nature of discussion of the controversy on social media?

Not that I believe any publicity is good publicity because I don't.. but estate agents are already hated and they know it!

 

[Sea Star]

Whereas white people? Well they're clever. And smug. Or something.

tedious and smug it appears....

 

[Pickman's model]

The guy they chose is the artistic director of a local dance charity. It wouldn't make sense if they chose a random white woman.

they might have had to do an inoffensive ad if they had

 

[moon]

The guy they chose is the artistic director of a local dance charity. It wouldn't make sense if they chose a random white woman.

Do you always read the small print?

 

[butchersapron]

The guy they chose is the artistic director of a local dance charity. It wouldn't make sense if they chose a random white woman.

And that was the only options to illustrate these two roles? Of course it wasn't. What's missing here is why they choose dance to oppose to estate agencies. Why this? Well,that and all the other historical things salem has missed.

 

[salem]

And that was the only options to illustrate these two roles? Of course it wasn't. What's missing here is why they choose dance to oppose to estate agencies. Why this? Well,that and all the other historical things salem has missed.

Do you think they went looking specifically for a black person? What do you think they should have used to illustrate the role if not the artistic director of a local group? I can't think of any option better suited and to take the second option because "oh noes we can't show a black man dancing" is just fucking offensive.

Do you always read the small print?

What do you mean?

 

[killer b]

What do you mean?

the vast majority of people who see the advert will have no idea who the guy is, and no reason to find out.

 

[butchersapron]

Do you think they went looking specifically for a black person? What do you think they should have used to illustrate the role if not the artistic director of a local group? I can't think of any option better suited and to take the second option because "oh noes we can't show a black man dancing" is just fucking offensive.

Irrelevant. The choices made were an opt-in to historic racist nonsense. And, as i said, i think knowingly so. The message, the myth exists outside of their choices though.

 

[salem]

Irrelevant. The choices made were an opt-in to historic racist nonsense. And, as i said, i think knowingly so. The message, the myth exists outside of their choices though.

So that's a yes?

 

[butchersapron]

So that's a yes?

No, it's an irrelevant to what the message/myth now is if they did or not.

 

[butchersapron]

Do you think they went looking specifically for a black person? What do you think they should have used to illustrate the role if not the artistic director of a local group? I can't think of any option better suited and to take the second option because "oh noes we can't show a black man dancing" is just fucking offensive.

Show a black man dancing - or openly say born to dance? What actually does this ad say salem? On the literal level as we can see you're not getting the semiotic level.

 

[salem]

No, it's an irrelevant to what the message/myth now is if they did or not.

So is that yes or no to my question?

 

[Pickman's model]

So is that yes or no to my question?

can you only work in binaries?

 

[salem]

can you only work in binaries?

Ironically it's something I picked up from you earlier in this thread!

 

[Pickman's model]

Ironically it's something I picked up from you earlier in this thread!

yeh where i had a question which worked within the binary system you favour. but this is a wider question that can't be so easily answered with one word.

 

[salem]

.

 

[Blagsta]

Yes. I'd expect a major nationwide campaign to have more people looking for potentially offensive content. I don't think it's as offensive or at least obviously offensive as you think.

And if it's part of a nationwide campaign it's still just a local interpretation of it. Therefore more likely to be delegated to a junior rather then have the top team and market research etc.


I didn't say the advert was done by their team. But I suspect that if this particular advert was a nationwide one it'd have more resources then one made for a single local branch.

It's like you can see no further than the end of your own nose.

 

[Pickman's model]

It's like you can see no further than the end of your own nose.

that far, eh?

 

[marshall]

Well I think an advert for a local branch of a company would have less scrutiny then a national advert campaign. The resources available for it would be more limited, it's more likely a junior would be working on it and so on. If I were to take offence I'd think it worse if the campaign had more resources behind it.

I think their agency is Saatchi Masius, a division of Saatchi & Saatchi. I'm guessing they're responsible for the creative? Hardly small or 'limited' in terms of resource.

 

[Plumdaff]

They probably employ at least black security guard or cleaner. I say employ, an outsourcer pays them minimum wage in that building. Some of us are born to hold down several low paid office cleaning jobs.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Comments like this ^ just demonstrate your own racist prejudices, this has nothing to do with what the ad says

Except that rutita is about the least racist person I've come across on Urban. That being the case, your analysis (if it can be called that) would appear to be flawed.

so according to the U75 PC-brigade, it is racist to cast a black man in the role of a dancer. Unbelievable....

Only if you're ignorant enough to not take into account the comparative representations of the black man and the white man in the advert. You clearly are ignorant enough.

I wonder how Mark Elie would feel if he saw this lunatic thread, since he is being accused in his absence of complicity with racism against his own race.

Hopefully he'd feel, if he had any wit at all, a sense of shame that he'd allowed himself to be used by cunts.

 

[ViolentPanda]

he is being accused by the U75 PC-brigade of complicity with racism, because he is allowing his image to be used in a racist advert (and profiting from it too)

Of course in the real world this wouldnt be an issue, since outside of the fantasy world of the U75 self-righteously adamant pc-brigade, no normal person would think that the advert in question was racist.

But here, on U75, Mark Elie is being accused of complicity with racism

No he isn't, bird-brain.