11/09/2025
Dr. Carl Jones the creator of , was interviewed earlier this year in Bulgaria when he was a keynote speaker at the Bulgarian Advertising awards FARA. Below is his response to the RACISMO NEON project:
Your doctoral thesis looks at diversity in advertising. How did you come up with this idea?
I worked in the advertising industry in Mexico for over 25 years. I remember when I moved there, I couldn't understand why, when the locals were brown or dark-skinned, everywhere in the ads only had light-skinned or white people. I asked my colleagues at the ad agency, and they told me that they preferred to have such people. Even the locals cast white people in their ads. I couldn't understand that.My master's degree focused on racism and class division in art, and the advertising industry is an extension of that. For my PhD, I was looking for a solution to that problem. So I focused on diversity, because decolonization means freeing yourself from colonial thinking, specifically in Mexico.
Did you achieve a result?
I created a poster campaign to provoke a conversation in the country about racism and Mexican society, which had to decide for itself whether there was racism. These posters provoked a conversation that I analyzed and started thinking about solutions.
The problem in Mexico is that they use white people to advertise to people of color. Their strategy is to show that if you're white and you use this product, then that product is good. They want to create the impression that if you consume something, then you can have the white lifestyle. The way you look leads to a certain lifestyle.
In Mexico, 90% of the population is dark-skinned, but when you see the advertisements, you would think that everyone is white. And the locals accept that because that's what has been communicated to them for centuries.
Advertising agencies have started to discuss the people who are in the ads and to change that. Of course, they don't necessarily have to use a black person to speak to a black audience, it all depends on the brand, the product, the ad. But it's important for agencies to be aware that there is a problem.
You can't change the mindset of 132 million people. I was the head of the advertising association in Mexico and the vice president of three agencies there. I have influence over people in the advertising industry, but not outside of it. I can't change the entire advertising industry by myself.
In my research, I focused on the luxury shopping stores of El Palacio De Hierro, on the level of Harrods in London. For over 70 years, their advertisements in Mexico have only featured white people. Last year, they featured an Afro-Mexican in their advertisement. They're starting to change.
Please click below if you want to read more of the interview, be aware that some ideas are lost in translation.
Комуникационният специалист и преподавател Карл У. Джоунс, пред "Капитал"
