In the past few years, we see more and more Asian faces on screen. Some well known Asian artists include Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, Daniel Kim, Yunjin Kim, to name just a few. But are the roles these Asian play in the movies really Asian?
Tony Award winner B.D. Wong plays a doctor on Sesame Street, Jurassic Park and Law & Order. In the interview with ABC 20/20 Hollywood Stereotypes, he said the image of Asian "pisses him off". He wants to be cute but Asians are not in Hollywood.
In Hollywood, Asians are either boring professional or kung fu experts. Yes, martial arts are part of the Asian culture. Yes, Asians accounts for 30% of the medical scientists in the US, and that 17% of physicians and surgeons are Asians. But that does not mean Asians are not cool.
I found the recent Alberto VO5 "Break the Mold" spot (see below) which features two Chinese rebellious teenagers run away from a strict school, captures very well what Asians really are. Asians will find this spot particularly interesting, no matter they like it or hate it. The spot should be very eye-catching to non-Asian as well. After all, it looks so different from the other commercials.
Some of the marketers are smart enough to share general market creative with their diversity AOR before production to see if it makes sense to apply the creative in multiple segments. In some cases, some additional shadow shooting with Asian talents will work. That could save a lot of production cost.
What marketers should also do is to make sure Asian talents are included in the general market media as well. After all, it is the minorities in the US that are the majority. 5% of the population is Asian and they represent $260 billion annual buying power. While many Asians consume Asian media, they don'’t live in a vacuum. They are reached by general market advertising as well. Keep that in mind, whether you do Asian marketing or general marketing.
Technorati Tags:
Asian American
, Asian Marketing
, Multicultural Marketing
, Diversity Advertising
, Creative Adaptation
, Hollywood Stereotypes
, Asian Artist
, Alberto VO5
1 comment:
Hi. I found your site when I went onto Google to see if anyone thought anything weird about this commercial and how it portrays China and/or Chinese people.
Maybe I'm giving hip young people a bit too much credit, but I think they largely associate modern China with kids who are more open-minded -- and with wilder hairstyles -- than their parents and grandparents.
I think this commercial is supposed to be mocking a communist China from an earlier era, when such non-conformity was heavily frowned upon, if not outright crushed. There was a fast-food chain that had a similar commercial back in the late 1980s or early 1990s that made fun of a lack of choices in "Soviet fashion."
Contrary to the concerns of others, I don't think the commercial is necessarily promoting a stereotype. After all, it is showing that some of the kids, at least "break the mold," so certainly it's not portraying all of China as a bunch of automatons.
The one thing I think is most interesting is that the map in the classroom is not an accurate map of China, but a mirror image of one.
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