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by JMostert
6134 days ago
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Interestingly, neither the original image nor the manipulated one can be called racist. The trouble only comes from realizing we're looking at a before and after. Microsoft generally goes to great lengths to ensure people are not offended. It has to, because of the sheer size and diversity of its markets. Raymond Chen has blogged about one apparently innocuous issue [http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08/22/54679.a...], and there must have been many, many more across Microsoft products. Marketing works better if you reflect your audience's tastes. Doubtlessly someone calculated that the other image better suited Polish tastes, for which a racially diverse cast only serves as a vivid reminder that the image was marketed for an American audience. This doesn't make either the Poles or the marketing racist. The only thing "racist" was the mistake to clumsily manipulate an existing image instead of using a brand new one. Penny wise, pound foolish. |
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Supplementary point of information: Poland's ethnic make-up diverges massively from that of the USA -- according to wikipedia the last census suggested there were a grand total of 4500-odd black people living in Poland (pop. 38 million). They have some Vietnamese, but they're still pretty rare; Poland's ethnic minorities are almost all eastern European. So the original ad would push "exotic foreign company" buttons, which is not what you want to do if you're trying to present yourself as a regular local business.
(On the other hand? "Mindlessly stupid" just about begins to sum up what they did with photoshop ...)