Layla Lusby
Sony
This is an assignment from my People Centered Copywrite class. This unit was on race, ethnicity & culture and we were challenged to find the best way to represent people of color in advertising.
Research
Research Question: What is the best way to represent minoritized people in the media?
I approached this research with a broad question in mind, with the intention of developing a better baseline understanding of race representation in the media as a whole. It’s common sense that, like most facets of life, race isn’t something that’s handled properly and left minoritized groups incorrectly represented and left out of the conversation so to speak. Within this research, I wanted to look at the exact qualities that make up good representation as opposed to bad representation.
Strategy
With the reserach findings in mind, I made personas and language rules to act as the strategy. It's important to avoid stereotypes and prioritize personality. Keeping in mind the real world impact that media representation can have on people is key.
Ad Executions
#SonY2K
"Sony’s noise canceling headphones will keep you lost in your music, free from the commotion of the outside world."
Visually, this campaign draws from the Sony (and other technology brands) advertisements from the 90’s and early 2000’s. The whole ‘Y2K’ trend and a general resurgence of the retro futurism and frutiger aero aesthetic inspired me to make a ‘vintage’ campaign invoking that style. Within the framework of this being the race, ethnicity, and culture unit, I decided to opt for entirely casual representation. I made an ad campaign with a visual style idea and included people who weren’t white. It’s people in an advertisement, period, that is it. This ad specifically was made for my ‘Ezra’ persona, as it would be a way for him to see someone who looks like him and wears headphones like him in a way that looks cool and is identifiable.
"Playstation is the gaming console of the future, offering the most advanced and out-of-this world capabilities."
This ad follows the same visual idea and representation premise as the previous, this time featuring a Hispanic woman playing video games. I did this for many reasons, but looking at my persona Rochelle, this was made for her. Women as a whole are underrepresented in the gaming space. This includes advertisements, games themselves, and community- related aspects of gaming. This is even more so for women of color, so I wanted to make sure I included them. As mentioned previously, I’ve opted for a casual kind of representation in this campaign, so it is merely a person playing video games in a specific visual aesthetic.
"Revolutionize yourself with the all new Sony Xperia tablet, the thinnest and most future-forward yet."
Under the same ideas of the other two ads in this campaign, I’m aiming for casual representation by merely including people in my vision. The previous one, featuring the woman, included a level of intersectionality by having a woman of color. Similarly, this ad features a man of Asian descent who is also older than you would typically see in this sort of ad. Tech ads in general, and especially the late 90’s to early 2000’s ones that I based this campaign on almost exclusively young people. I think this is due to the fact that younger people tend to have more interest in technology, but we do live in a society where everyone is expected to use technological devices to get by in their day to day lives and to communicate with others.