Some Thoughts About Combating Racist Content In Advertising

In this blog, we frequently report on advertisements where brands have gotten called out for being racist and sexist and for being insensitive to racial and other cultural issues.  There was the H&M ad which promoted a sweatshirt, modeled by a black child, which featured the saying, "Coolest Monkey in the Jungle."  There was the Groupon ad that promoted boots that were available in the color, "[n-word] brown."  There was the Redditt ad promoting whitedate.net, which is a dating site for white people.  And the Alitalia ad featuring an actor in blackface.  And the list goes on. 

This is a moment in time when we're asking ourselves, as advertising lawyers, marketers, and members of a larger community, what more can we do to help ensure that -- in the words of President Obama -- "the legacy of bigotry and unequal treatment no longer infects our institutions or our hearts."