Native American Advertising

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Television Commercials targeted to Minorities

The first commercial television advertisement ran almost 76 years ago and it featured the “Bulova” watch brand. Since then, commercials have been considered one of the premier forms of advertising. A multitude of advertisers have used symbols from the Native American heritage and traditions to sell their products. Advertiser’s have become very familiar with how to target certain demographics and how to make the biggest impact on those that they are targeting with their advertisements. The Native American population has always been a target of advertisers because they like to use imagery from this faction not only in television advertisements but, also in print …show more content…

The question that begs to be answered is should we be able to culturally appropriate from cultures different from our own for product appeal and sales? When you think of a Native American Indians what is the first thought that pops into your mind? Is it Tepee’s, smoke signals, a headdress, tomahawks, face paint or one of the many other symbols that are routinely associated with this social group. What is being done while advertising products in a television commercial using these Native American images is basically just stereotyping a group of people. “A stereotype is a set of inaccurate, simplistic generalizations that allow others to categorize them. According to many scholars American Indians have been the victim of unfair stereotypes before the media ever existed.” (Ruckman) But, once it did exist then it was used so unfairly to perpetuate the cultural myths surrounding this group of Americans. The Native American culture has always been important in advertising and this sort of ad is almost commonplace but, most advertisements have nothing to do with the true Native American Indian culture and are deeply hurtful to those who are portrayed in those commercials. Should a culture be frozen in it’s past or does it have the right to change and grow and lose the old symbols that it was once known for or at least …show more content…

Drunk Driving and the college fund for their young men and women. Cheryl Crazy Bull, President and CEO of the College Fund, said, "We are in the business of ensuring that American Indian students are able to use modern tools to build better societies in their communities and in the United States. A college education is a critical tool we can help students access. Our new campaign bridges the traditional world of the students we serve with that of contemporary society, in a respectful way to Native cultures while giving the public a glimpse of our students. Startling statistics deserve a creative approach to drive the message home”. (Entertainment Newsweekly) The startling statistic that the President of the College Fund is referring to is that only 1% of college students are Native Americans. But, we need to take into account that Native American Indians are also a relatively small percentage of the population as a

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