Something else I’ve noticed is that I see redheads in commercials to a seemingly far disproportional degree than the percentage of gingers in the general population. I used to think it was just a form of confirmation bias since I married a redhead, the way you notice a certain model of car everywhere after you buy that model. But if I google “redheads overrepresented in commercials” a number of articles support this observation:
- Primetime TV Ads Feature an Unusually High Number of Redheads - Hollywood Reporter
- Redheads Are More Common in Commercials Than in Real Life - The Atlantic
- What’s up with all the redheads in TV ads? - Today.com
Does that go against the grain of the OP’s observation, since redheads are typically the whitest of the white in skin color? Well, not necessarily-- there’s this recent Walgreen’s commercial, which prominently features a redhead…whose Black boyfriend / husband fixes her boo-boo after she falls off a scooter:
Again, I think it’s just the advertiser trying to be as inclusive and multi-ethnic as possible while only having a couple to work with, and being a bit ham-handed about it. I can imagine the pitch meeting: “ok, we casted a Black man for one half of the couple…why not go with a pale redhead as his significant other? Can’t get much more Ebony & Ivory than that!”