News: Russian Ads Using Obama Seen as Racist

From Asiaone News / Associated Free Press

MOSCOW, RUSSIA - Obama ice cream, anyone? Chocolate-vanilla ice cream is one of several Russian products being marketed using America's first black president, even as critics call the ads racist.

Other ads featuring US President Barack Obama have promoted tanning salons and tooth-whitening services.

But the creator of one Obama-themed ad - for ice cream bars which have a chocolate-flavoured centre embedded in a layer of vanilla - insisted Friday that it was not racist and should be seen as a joke.

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So, what do you think? Racist? A good marketing ploy? Just a joke? Or all of the above?

News: Advertisement Industry Under Fire

From Target Market News:

The inability of the advertising industry to fill its desks, cubicles and offices with a diverse work force is coming under fire again, this time from a lawyer with a track record of extracting large settlements on behalf of employees of giant corporations like Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley and Texaco who believed they had been the victims of racial discrimination.

Cyrus Mehri (above), a lawyer who has sued corporations over racial discrimination, said that "favoritism rules and merit is cast aside" in the advertising industry.

The lawyer, Cyrus Mehri, joined the N.A.A.C.P. at a news conference on Thursday in Midtown Manhattan to release a report on race and employment in advertising. The 100-page report, addressing subjects like hiring, compensation, assignments and promotions, is part of what the N.A.A.C.P. and Mr. Mehri, of the Washington law firm of Mehri & Skalet, are calling the Madison Avenue Project.

There's More:

Blacks remain underrepresented on Madison Avenue, according to the report, "Research Perspectives on Race and Employment in the Advertising Industry," which concluded that only 5.3 percent of managers and professionals at agencies in 2008 were black.

And those blacks who do manage to land jobs on Madison Avenue are significantly underpaid, the report said, earning 80 cents for each dollar earned by their white counterparts.The economy worsens the problem, Ms. Ciccolo said, because "many training, recruitment and antidiscrimination programs come to a complete halt" in hard times.
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or Read more about the Madison Avenue Project

This is for all those that think that discrimination in the workplace is a thing of the past.