Dmitriy T.M. sent us a link to an AdWeek post reporting that Miller Beer began advertising in Vietnam last week with this commercial:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG9H5_oKVd0[/youtube]
Some sociologists who study international relations apply the idea of the brand to nations. Nations, they argue, can be seen as a product in a global marketplace. Australia, for example, is marketed as a rough and tumble place where we can get back to nature and find our true selves. Insofar as they can can control their brand, countries can draw tourism and increase demand for their exports (see here and here for Australian examples).
The ad above is an excellent example of Miller capitalizing on the American brand: “It’s American Time. It’s Miller Time.” Notice also that the ad is in English and doesn’t feature anyone that looks Vietnamese. The whiteness of the ad is purposeful. Miller is selling a specific version of “America” characterized by white people, urban life, sex-mixed socializing and, also, really bad music.
UPDATE! In the comments, Adam linked to this ad which ran in the Phillipines:
You can also think of the California happy cows commercials as a form of state branding.
See here, here, and herefor posts showing the social construction of America as white.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 4
Sue — August 24, 2009
Similar point, although in an ad for the U.S. audience: I keep seeing a tourism commercial for the Dominican Republic (I can't find it online), but the campaign's slogan is something like "The Colors of Happiness." The D.R. has a very diverse citizenry; I've seen people of all shades.
But all the people in the ad are white.
Liz — August 24, 2009
It's interesting because one of my current roommates came to America from Vietnam a few years ago. Before we had a conversation about it he thought all black Americans had directly immigrated from Africa.
Adam — August 24, 2009
Growing up in the Philippines, I remember a whole slew of ads that used American-ness as a selling point. In a post-colonial society, "whiteness" was often used as an aspirational marketing tool, sometimes in eerily blatant ways (skin-whitening products spring to mind). The concept of "America" was used just as explicitly. Most vivid in my memory were the ads for cigarettes, with a jingle I can still sing today, "Give me a Winston, the Spirit of the USA!"
There's a part of an article about this very commercial here:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-8287424.html
and an example of a print ad with the same slogan here:
http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/adgallery/display.php3?ID=153
It's alarming that these ads appeared in the Philippines after they were outlawed in America, and it's sad to how effective this type of marketing has been.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/afde48adfe2d6162f2851028badfdcc6.htm
Ted — September 28, 2009
See these sociologists have nothing better to do, because there area of study is b*******. So instead, they look at images and try to find racist things in them. This is such a stupid website I can't even imagine someone with a PhD would have created it,until I realized they MUST sociologists. I'm not saying all the images dont have racist comments in them. Just that these people with "PhD's" have too much time on their hands.