digg this | mixx! | reddit | del.icio.us | Newsvine | |  e-mail article |  print | post comments | NEWSLETTER ©DiversityInc. Reproduction in any format is absolutely prohibited.

Does the following idea sound like a marketing mistake? Take six muscularly built, topless black men and have them bow to an average-looking white man dressed in khaki pants and a blue, button-down shirt.

If you winced when picturing that scenario as an advertisement, then you did more than Intel Corp.'s marketing department did when they created the print advertisement titled "Multiply Computing Performance and Maximize the Power of Your Employees."

Following the release of that print advertisement, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel is apologizing for its marketing misstep.

The ad was supposed to convey the performance capabilities of Intel's computer processors by linking its ability to that of six black-male sprinters. But instead, the picture of six muscular black men bowing before a white man came across as culturally insensitive and racist. The blog Afropologe asked, "Do black people even work at Intel?"

"When it comes down to it, Intel equates these Black men ... to technology, to machines, to tools that white men ... can buy, sell, use and control and with no tough feelings--I mean look at the smug smile on that guy's face," wrote Afropologe.

Gizmodo, a technology blog, also commented on the connotation of a white man surveying a group of black men who are bowing at his feet. "One of Intel's latest ad's shows six athletic black dudes bowing down before a dorky white guy in khaki pants," reads Gizmodo. "Lousy, barely subliminal racist advertising or just plain lousy advertising?"

Blog site The Register asked why the ad wasn't red-flagged by one or more of the many executives who undoubtedly eyed the ad before it went to print. "Either the folks at Intel are such wide-eyed innocents that nobody noticed how the ad could be perceived or they are in fact racists and love the idea, or everyone involved was asleep at the wheel," wrote The Register.

Intel reportedly pulled the ad from hundreds of publications in response, identified specific but undisclosed steps in its ad-review process and said it would rely on them and "just more common sense," reported Indo-Asian News Service.

An Intel statement released by Nancy Bhagat, vice president and director of Integrated Marketing, read: "Intel's intent of our ad titled 'Multiply Computing Performance and Maximize the Power of Your Employees' was to convey the performance capabilities of our processors through the visual metaphor of a sprinter. We have used the visual of sprinters in the past successfully. Unfortunately, our execution did not deliver our intended message and in fact proved to be insensitive and insulting. Upon recognizing this, we attempted to pull the ad from all publications but, unfortunately, we failed on one last media placement. We are sorry and are working hard to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Readers' Comments

More Marketplace >>

digg this | mixx! | reddit | del.icio.us | Newsvine | |  e-mail article |  print | post comments | NEWSLETTER

Send Your Comments About This Article Now