I was in CVS today, and I saw the new ad for Diet Coke that they’ve
got displayed prominently above the twelve-packs. It features a
smiling Asian woman holding a bottle of Diet Coke. The slogan?
“Treat yourself light.” :eek:
I generally find unfortunately phrased advertising funny rather than,
y’know, appalling, but I swear reading that made my jaw drop. So is
the Coke ad department trying to be funny, or are they just completely
freaking oblivious?
I don’t get it…
I imagine that coke’s response will be that it was merely a coincidence that the person was asian, and that the whole idea behind the ad was a “clever” rewording alluding to calories.
Cynical as I am, I would tend to believe that’s the case. They would be insane to assume that the ad would otherwise be in any way acceptable.
Treat yourself “light”, as opposed to “right”, being that one of those typical Asian stereotypes is the pronunciation of Rs as Ls.
I don’t get it either. Why would an Asian person be any less likely to drink Diet Coke? And why can’t you just explain what your beef is instead of being so cryptic?
Ah, ok thanks. I guess I’m just not up-to-date on my sterotypes 
Well, as soon as I post that I see an explanation. So that’s the beef, that it resembles Engrish, and so you think it was intentional? :rolleyes:
I swear some of you people walk around looking for stuff to be pissed about.
Heh, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. If they were really trying to be “clever” they’d probably have “tleat yourself light.”
Is the problem with this ad really that difficult to understand? As **TellMeI’mNotCrazy ** just explained,
Try reading next time before you go and spout off against the OP.
Just for the record, I’m not offended by the ad - and I’m half Thai. I was just pointing out what the OPs beef with the ad was. Just for clarity an’ all.
I retract my last post then.
Isn’t the stereotype that they have trouble with L’s, not R’s? In which case there would be no slur anyway.
Yeah, simulposts are teh suck.
Do I think it was intentional? Not necessarily. As I said in the OP, it could be that it’s an unfortunate coincidence. It’s very possible that there are similar ads featuring non-Asian individuals.
Ya know, I thought about that after I posted. I think it works both ways. There’s the stereotypical “Herro” and then there’s “Flied Lice”. I guess the stereotype is just that they transpose them a lot? I dunno.
Actually, the “problem” with the ad was somewhat obscure–and it requires a specific knowledge of the photographed person’s ethnicity in addition to ignoring the actual text of the ad in order for it to even be offensive.
First, the woman is identified as “Asian,” but there is no specific clue as to whether she is Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, etc. (It is not entirely clear that an American of European ancestry would be able to easily distinguish a Chinese person from a Japanese person any more than an East Asian could distinguish a Swede from a Pole–or that Asians or Europeans could clearly and easily distinguish even among their “own” ethnic groups). This is not an irrelevant observation: the stereotypes are that Japanese cannot pronounce /L/ and that Chinese cannot pronounce /R/–and those stereotypes do not even extend to the Koreans, Thais, etc. Therefore, the woman needs to be clearly identifiable as Chinese before such a stereotypical claim can be made. Then, there is the point already made that the word “treat” that begins the sentence contains a correctly identified “r”.
As a “what was that?” moment, I would say that it works (and might have made an amusing, if sleight, anecdote in MPSIMS). As the basis for a rant, it is obscure and lacking in gravity.
Now, if we decide to hijack this thread into a rant against overreactions or unnecessary heat. . . .
Who cares. Go out to a movie or something.
I’m assuming it said light instead of right because it was an ad for DIET-coke who cares if it is an asian peron, this is the lamest pit thread ever.
yeah that should read person :smack:
Gosh, thanks! 