race in ads

Be it for good or bad, using race in ads tends to be a very effective way to advertise a product. In the 30's and 40's, if a product had a black person on it, and that person was portrayed as either a butler or mammy, the product tended to sell better than if it didn't have either one of these people. The reason for this is that people at that time, who would by products such as rice in a box or already-made pancakes you only have to add a few ingredients to, tended to be wealthy and they had some money to spare. If you had money to spare, you tended to have either a butler and/or mammy. The pictures are there because of the type of people buying it. Although nowadays, people aren't really so happy about using race in ads, it is still done, but not to the degree like in the mid nineties.