Tarah's Digital Voice

Wow. Just wow.

The official Nivea statement reads: “After realizing that this ad is misleading, it was immediately withdrawn.” Really? It’s pretty disturbing that no one on the brand team realized that before launching it, much less when it was pitched to them by the moronic agency.

What is it going to take for brands and agencies to understand that there's a vast difference between irreverent humor and idiotic, offensive, archaic thinking? Categorize this with Groupon's Super Bowl spots.

A Nivea print ad encouraging African-American men to “re-civilize” themselves, now appearing in September’s issue of Esquire magazine, created a firestorm of tweets, Facebook updates and blog posts accusing the brand of racism.

Nivea took to its Facebook Page Thursday afternoon to issue an apology and thank fans for their concern. Parent company Beiersdorf AG withdrew the ad from future publication.

“Thank you for caring enough to give us your feedback about the recent ‘Re-civilized’ NIVEA FOR MEN ad. This ad was inappropriate and offensive,” Nivea said on Facebook. “It was never our intention to offend anyone, and for this we are deeply sorry. This ad will never be used again. Diversity and equal opportunity are crucial values of our company.”

The ad in question portrays an African-American man tossing out a mask of himself with a beard and afro-style hairdo. It reads, “Look like you give a damn,” and has the phrase “re-civilize yourself” bolded in all capital letters.

Bloggers, Twitter users and Facebook members took issue with the racial implications of the print ad.

“The message couldn’t be clearer: Natural hair on a black man isn’t a style preference or a nod to afrocentrism — it’s straight-up uncivilized,” GOOD Associate Editor Nona Willis Aronowitz wrote.

“Wonder what, if anything, @Rihanna will say about this as the face of #nivea,” fashion writer Septembre Anderson tweeted. Rihanna was chosen as the official spokeswoman for Nivea earlier this year. The caption on Anderson’s Twitpic photo reads, “Adding Nivea to the list of companies that will not be getting my money. Post-racial my ass.”

A separate ad featuring “a clean-shaven white guy getting ready to toss away his scraggly unshaven head and the words, ‘Sin City isn’t an excuse to look like hell,’” seemed to be overlooked in the midst of the social media uprising, according to AdAge.

Nivea parent company Beiersdorf AG shared the following longer statement with CNN:

“We are deeply sorry to anyone who may take offense to this specific local advertisement. After realizing that this ad is misleading, it was immediately withdrawn.

“Diversity and equal opportunity are crucial values of NIVEA: The brand represents diversity, tolerance, and equal opportunity. We value difference. Direct or indirect discrimination must be ruled out in all decisions by, and in all areas of our activities. This applies regardless of gender, age, race, skin color, religion, ideology, sexual orientation, or disability. Nor should cultural, ethnic, or national origin, and political or philosophical conviction be of any significance.”

Images courtesy of AdAge & GOOD

via mashable.com

It's an interesting dilemma: to filter, or not to filter? I've been saying for years that you really have no choice; if you don't filter, you're guaranteed to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume and clutter of your social networks and the digital news cycle. However, Eli Pariser makes some extremely valid points in his fascinating interview about the risks of filtering everything: privacy implications, monotony, advertising implications. I suppose the key is to find a way to filter our filtering, allowing for the serendipitous discovery and identity-less (at least somewhat) browsing experience that allows us to truly discover again. It's only going to get more complex as time goes on, so we all should be experimenting now.

Why a hyper-personalized Web is bad for you (Q&A) | Geek Gestalt - CNET News

We all like having things tailored to our specific needs and interests. But Eli Pariser thinks we should beware of the substantial risks inherent in the increasing personalization of the Internet.

Better known (so far) as the executive director of the progressive political action committee MoveOn.org, Eli Pariser is making noise these days as the author of "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You." His new book, which was released yesterday, argues that the latest tools being implemented by the likes of Google and Facebook for making our Internet experiences as individual as possible are taking us down some very unsavory paths.

First, of course, Pariser explains the dynamic we all face online today: that no two people's Web searches, even on the same topics, return the same results. That's because search engines and other sites are basing what they send back on our previous searches, the sites we visit, ads we click on, preferences we indicate, and much more. Not to mention the fact that we are more and more shielded from viewpoints counter to our own.

But while the results are no doubt geared to what we're most interested in, they come at a price--in terms of lost privacy, more ads, and even being followed by certain types of ads no matter where we go online.

Yesterday, Pariser sat down with CNET for a 45 Minutes on IM interview about his book and the problems that come with increasing personalization, and why people should care.