The pitfalls of casting without culture

While there were positives to be seen across 2023's bulging sack of Xmas ads, and areas of improvement from the year before, one issue was raised again and again. That while the number of Black people in ads had increased, the understanding and representation of Black culture had not.   

Seems like White people wrote these Black characters.

“No one in the Black community is throwing a party with Waitrose frozen or even fresh foods. This is so unrealistic. I’ve never been to a party without some good chicken, plantain, jollof and/or rice and peas. I knew from the start when the woman was relaxing with her feet up when they were getting ready to host people that it was going to be completely unrealistic. Seems like White people wrote these Black characters.”

This is just one of a host of verbatim comments we got from research we carried out with members of the Black community on five of last year’s top Christmas ads. 

Other comments from the Black community on the Waitrose festive ad included “I'm not used to seeing Black people portrayed like this. It's all a bit cheesy."

On the whole, any attempt at inclusion remained tokenistic, as both agencies and brands showed that they are still struggling in their approach to truly representing Black lives.

This is because culture and context are often not considered during the production process. This makes it hard to shape real stories that make the community feel seen, heard, valued and included; which in turn, ruins any connection that may have had with the brand. 

We got a whole slew of Christmas ads featuring Black people, but they leant heavily on old anachronistic tropes.

Feedback on the Bailey's 2023 holiday offering, which featured a group of gospel singers, was also less than ideal : “Black people always seem to be cast in choir roles. This advert has nothing to do with the community.” 

And the rather damning, "It's getting tiring seeing Black people in purely supportive roles, singing behind a White woman. It doesn’t inspire.” 

The Bailey's gospel choir didn't hit the right note with everybody.

This is why we got a whole slew of Christmas ads featuring Black people, but leaning heavily on old anachronistic tropes and shoehorning Black characters into essentially White Christmas scenarios. The idea of tradition at Christmas doesn’t mean we have to fall back on a Victorian scene of a turkey the size of a horse on the dinner table, carol singers and mistletoe. 

Google research - and asking whoever from a minority community that might work in your office - is not enough to deliver authentic representative ads.  

Not everyone has the same ideal of what Christmas looks like, fewer still whose Christmas looks anything like they planned. Why not give audiences something they can genuinely relate to? 

But this is a problem with a relatively simple fix. All it takes is a little more planning; a little more thought; and, most importantly of all, talking to Black audiences about what they want and expect to see. Asking whoever from a minority community that might work in your office - is not enough to deliver authentic representative ads.  

The best way for brands to connect with Black audiences is to hear what they're saying about what they want to see. 

To research the ads we used our Community Calibration tool, which tests a brand’s content with specific minority groups during the production process to understand what they think of the portrayal and if it captures the current cultural context of that community. By connecting directly with consumers in this way, brands can showcase more progressive reflections of communities in modern society and end tokenism.

Feedback on two particular ads showed that it’s more than possible to achieve this without losing the message. 

JD Sports and Primark were the standout campaigns that attracted praise from the Black community this year. Feedback on the JD Sports' ad speaks volumes: “There are so many cultural references from the Black joy, laughter, community, food and representation across all elements of urban culture.”

Uncommon Creative Studio's Bag For Life festive spot for JD Sports was well received. 

Primark's holiday ad from Continuous also drew praise for its “many variations and shades of Black. The afros, the curls, the families. I like this portrayal of the black community and it looks like  actual realistic/authentic footage rather than actors.” 

Can it be so difficult to get elements like food, community and even hairstyles right? When presented with feedback like this, it’s so easy to see how just taking more time to understand the communities you are talking to can vastly improve the ads you create, and turn something lazy and tokenistic into something naturalistic and relatable. 

The Black diaspora in the UK is not just one community – it is many different people  from a wide variety of cultures, and there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ solution, let alone at Christmas. By asking the right people the right questions, you can have confidence in your work at each stage of the process.