The age we live in

I find it a bit amusing when companies splash their campaigns with nationalist ideals. Sometimes it can be suffocating. Although an extreme comparison, it akin to when politicians are a bit xenophobic in their campaigns or policies. There are a number of firms branding their company in such as a way as to lure the populace into using their products of services. In particular, the way that they want to ‘claim back’ jobs that ‘belong’ to their home country seems to me the most disturbing.

One notable attempt was when a firm [won’t name call] re-branded themselves when they purchased the existing infrastructure around the country. A sound move, re-introducing themselves to the population with a livid ad campaign that most notably highlighted that they were going to create jobs for local nationals. I wouldn’t have had a problem with them saying that they were creating more jobs for New Zealanders, but the imagery and wording in one of their first TV ads were steps taken too far in the other direction, in depicting jobs literally being ‘taken back’ from foreign workers.

Xenophobic, brimming with distaste. A country supposedly renown for its multicultural diversity, tolerance and acceptance of different cultures and ideas suddenly appeared remarkably monotoned and discriminatory of other cultures.

In this ad, ‘foreign thieves’ had their computers [jobs, as implied in this case] snatched away from them by locals, united in some pre-1945 fervour. Did it not occur to *whoever did their PR* that those jobs were someone’s livelihood? That they also have mouths to feed? That every nationality in this country migrated from elsewhere? That a significantly large potential customer/employee-base was not represented? Clearly not.

Thankfully some University of Auckland students, with locals from other regions in some dissent, put through some well-thought out wall posts on this company’s Facebook wall. Now this was a fair few months ago, and thankfully this company’s ad campaign now showcases a multicultural New Zealand like none before. Funnily enough, a friend mentioned to me recently that she did not know about this debacle, and had previously thought that this company was amazing; that they were willing to represent their NZ firm in a culturally diverse manner.

But this then begs a few questions. Should it be necessary for students to provide such feedback after the fact, before such a misrepresentation problem occurs? Or should marketers and their clients/bosses have the initiative and foresight to appreciate cultural diversity in the first place? For me, this was a pretty stark reminder of how vastly different the views in some less-densely-populated areas can be, irrespective of what country you’re in. An even sharper point that was driven home was that some companies believed that this was an acceptable marketing strategy to begin with, especially in this day and age./rant