Disgust - The Reform party Racist Sarah Pochlin

She has apologised. Why? If it wasn't racist, why apologise?

PaynesGrey

Aveline. The formal research was published three years ago.

I am taking about what is on TV now in 2025, as I presume is Pochin. I have seen plenty of evidence on ITV, Channel 4 and Sky today to prove her wrong.

Latest consecutive ads on ITV not already mentioned:

• Lebara Mobile. Two white men.
• M&S. Asian female model, white male partner.
• Dairylea cheese. Two white children.
• Guide Dogs. Four blind adults, three white, one black.
• TGA Mobility. White couple. Black woman.
• NHA Flu Vaccine. Six adults in a life, four white, one Asian, one black.
• Plantur 39 shampoo. Four white women.
• Find My Past. Featuring old photos all of white people.
• Euromillions. Hundreds of people all ethnicities.
• Guide Dogs. White family, mother, father and two sons.
• M& S. White mother, white daughter.

I am labouring the point as, over dozens of adverts for different brands, I simply don't see what Pochin is claiming, that white people are not fairly represented in advertising.

Conclusion:

25 white actors
5 non-white actors
(plus the Euromllions ad)
ie 17%

11 ads
5 had non-white people in them
ie 45%

Just to show how percentages can be manipulated.

Aveline

With people recording programmes so they can fast forward or pay for no advertising I think that TV advertising agencies must be having urgent meetings. Remember when adverts were clever or funny? Just irritating now.

😀

Has anyone ever been persuaded to buy anything from seeing a TV advert?

"Ooh, I must have that armchair, it takes years off you!!"

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

The strangest 'point' is that people seem to be bothered about coloured people appearing in adverts. Why does it matter?

Good question, MaizieD.

growstuff I refute that allegation. I do not call you nasty names.

I do not call anyone nasty names.

I reported your post.

MaizieD- The correct term is Person of Colour. Coloured people is racist.

Thanks Bukkie, we do aim to be politically correct.
And I am quite sure that Maizie D, perhaps unlike Sarah Pochlin, was not intending anything untoward.
PS, I do not speak for everyone on this Thread.

What is and what is not acceptable changes so often it can be very confusing

MaizieD

The strangest 'point' is that people seem to be bothered about coloured people appearing in adverts. Why does it matter?

I think it matters because Reform try to make out that the country is overrun with ‘foreigners’ so when tv viewers see adverts that don’t represent the true demographic they believe the racist xenophobic things that the party uses. At least with an accusation of misinterpretation it might highlight how much air time Reform are given with their 5 (?) MP’s.

Well on the news it seems that most people do think that it is racist, including Starmer. And the silly woman who said it has apologised.
The thing is ads do not represent real life, is fake life with slappy happy people living perfect lives so why people are suddenly bothered about the number of people in these ads with coloured skin is beyond me, as if over representation will affect how people think it feel. It won’t. It doesn’t matter. And those in high dudgeon over this - and am going to use the R word - are apologists for racism.

Correction - think or feel

There are many cities eg Birmingham where there are very high percentages of Black and Asian people so the adverts are totally representative of the population in those areas. I accept that in some areas of the country there are few darker faces BUT if you are advertising a product then it should not matter what colour the person is.
Criticise the product if needed but not the race of the person using the product

Babs. Except Pochin is claiming that people will switch off TV if they don't see more white people. To repeat what she said:

It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people, full of anything other than white … how many times do you look at a TV advert and think there’s not a single white person on it … and it’s because of the woke liberati that goes on in the arty farty world. People notice. People will switch off.

Claiming that people will switch off is tantamount to saying that brands will lose revenue if they don't include more white people.

Anyway, I have put her claims to the test and they don't add up.

I watched 60 adverts on free-to-air ITV, C4, C5, Sky Arts and U/Dave noting the number of black and white actors.

36 of those ads contained only white actors. One advert had a lone black actor (Sensodyne dentist). 23 had a mix of black and white actors. The black actors were far outnumbered by white. There was not one of those 23 where black actors outnumbered white.

These are the 36 featuring white only actors:

Domino Pizza (2 different ads), DFS, Coventry Building Society, Three Mobile, Vinted, F&F clothing, Voltarol, Ladbrokes, Lexus, Corsodyl, Muller Rice, McDonalds, 32Red, JanePlan, Weetabix, EE (2 different ads), KitchenMagic. Cosyroof, Willowbrook Furniture, Lebara Mobile, Dairylea, Plantur 39, FindMyPast, GuideDogs, M&S, Clearscore, Gousto, Hotter Shoes, Goldcharter Funeral Plans, ebay, Movember, BHF/Kardia Mobile, Regina Kitchen Roll, Pure Cremations.

So to answer Pochin's question: how many times do you look at a TV advert and think there’s not a single white person on it

Ordinarily, it's not something I do think about but as Pochin has made me think about it today, I can answer her. One advert from 60 for Sensodyne toothpaste.

Bukkie

MaizieD- The correct term is Person of Colour. Coloured people is racist.

My Nigerian origin friend prefers "black" as in Black African origin. People like different descriptive terms. You'll hear "I'm Muslim" whatever the actual skin colour. It's in flux.

The problem with "coloured people" are the associations with the past, as in South Africa and the USA, where there were notices "no coloured: and signs "coloured" and "white". and of course in a way the term white isnt that helpful as people of Celtic origin have such different skin and hair tone as people of more Mediterranian origin, olive skinned, or people who originally were Anglo Saxons.....and of course people of Persian or mid European origin.

I think one of the reasons that people from the Ukraine had a better reception in the UK as refugees is that they are in racist peoples minds "one of us", "white".

And of course going back those notices in the windows "No Irish, no Blacks"....

Well the woke liberati in their arty farty world don’t exist, they are caricatures created by those who don’t like being called racists even though they are apparently prepared to switch off the adverts because another black person can be seen eating a branded cereal, is just so laughable but at the same time deeply troubling because why are people even noticing this?
I remember an uncle remarking on the fact back in the early sixties that nearly every bus driver was black in his neck of the woods. Back then my old dad pointed that out to him as racism God bless his soul.
But that it should happen today…..

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Ad makers bending over backwards to be inclusive. 8% or thereabouts of the population are black/mixed race yet adverts represent them in 45%. Often one white person with a mixed race partner.

Am I bovvered?
No, not at all. I had noticed this issue before Pochin’s statement but who really cares? It’s ad-land. Fantasy land at best. 🤷‍♀️

Just using this post as a basis for discussion, as no problems with the post as such.

I do care that people from all our multicultural backgrounds appear. Very much

Upthread I described why my granddaughter unwittingly said some quite racist stuff becuase in rural Co Durham there are no people of colour or other cultural backgrounds unless its "having a Chinese" "getting an Indian take out".

She said them because she was parroting what she had heard in school from kids with racist parents. Casual repeating. God knows what the parents are saying at home as well.

Last week I had a long discussion with said Nigerian origin friend about how racism had changed. She said, as is becoming obvious "it's always been there, but now people feel it's OK to be racist". She described various experiences which wont be news to anyone - but she is right, people now feel empowered. ....and then we had a laugh as all people actually originate from Africa

So I think it's great that people with different origins (and increasingly of course, disabilities and other signs of being "different" appear on ads. I think matters a lot. I welcome it as part of people realising we are all humans whatever the culture or colour label.

Yes I am an idealist. And why not? I enjoy difference. its fascinating talking to people who aren't "like us" whoever "us" are supposed to be. You learn a lot. Stay curious, posters.

Bukkie

Oreo and Aveline - Your posts are spot on. Pochin was merely stating a fact not being racists bit unfortunately I knew the wokies would jump on the observation and claim it was racist. It makes them feel morally superior and as my friend said only yesterday, "You can't argue with the morally superior, it's a waste of time and breath. They won't listen because they always know better."

How true.

Maremia

Thanks Bukkie, we do aim to be politically correct.
And I am quite sure that Maizie D, perhaps unlike Sarah Pochlin, was not intending anything untoward.
PS, I do not speak for everyone on this Thread.

Thank you, Maremia.

I now stand corrected.

Times change. My stepfather still says “the coloured chap up the road” as he still thinks it’s more polite than saying “the black man”. He thinks that would be offensive.

Babs03

Well the woke liberati in their arty farty world don’t exist, they are caricatures created by those who don’t like being called racists even though they are apparently prepared to switch off the adverts because another black person can be seen eating a branded cereal, is just so laughable but at the same time deeply troubling because why are people even noticing this?
I remember an uncle remarking on the fact back in the early sixties that nearly every bus driver was black in his neck of the woods. Back then my old dad pointed that out to him as racism God bless his soul.
But that it should happen today…..

I was we silence or skip through the adverts so I do hope thst remark is not aimed at me.

We switch off the adverts because they are noisy, irritating and irrelevant in the main.
They're just not witty or entertaining any more.

If you like watching them, that's up to you.

I remember an uncle remarking on the fact back in the early sixties that nearly every bus driver was black in his neck of the woods

Presumably that wasn't Bristol then.

PaynesGrey, we, well some of us, have been remiss in not thanking you for your efforts on behalf of this Thread, by doing the research on the statistics of the racial profiles and frequency of appearance of actors of colour in our advertising sequences.