SalesGenie.com ad: the new Apu?
SalesGenie Superbowl Commercial: Boss Threatens to Fire Salesman
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by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Wow, my inbox was flooded last night with emails decrying this SalesGenie.com ad that aired during the Superbowl last night.
What do you all think of the ad?
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
EH wrote:
I’m not sure. Besides the fact that the Indian guy had a slight accent I wasn’t sure why it was such a problem but I’ve seen other ppl complaining about it too. As far as I know having several children isn’t really something Indians are stereotyped for either. But maybe there’s just something I’m missing.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 8:25 am ¶
Anonymous wrote:
This one was terrible, but not as bad as “Ching Ching” and “Ling Ling”, the two stereotypically Chinese pandas in the OTHER salesgenie.com ads.
Apparently the ads were written by the salesgenie CEO, Vin Gupta. Going by the name Gupta… Hmm, an Indian person writing offensive ads towards Indians and Chinese? Makes this story even worse.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 8:30 am ¶
afrobella wrote:
I just realized that BOTH Salesgenie ads relied heavily on stereotypes — this one used an Indian stereotype (I must have been making my infamous Superbowl quesadillas when this came on). The one that got my goat was the panda ad, which IMO really relied heavily on the kinds of old school stereotypes I expect to see from Rob Schneider or something. It was terrible. Does anyone agree?
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 8:35 am ¶
dnA wrote:
No where near as bad as the Carlos Mencia ad I saw last night.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 9:17 am ¶
Cynthia wrote:
Anyone know if Vin Gupta is ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) or an immigrant who came as an adult? Many immigrants have a different POV when it comes to stereotypes. My parents, for example, are not exactly offended by the nerdy Asian male stereotype.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 9:23 am ¶
Stephanie wrote:
outrageous and offensive.
dnA – I know right? (Did you know that his name is really Ned?)
Did anyone see the Jimmy John’s ad with the “Japanese Business Men” ? I can’t find it online…
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 9:54 am ¶
RakuMon wrote:
Agree with dnA. That Mencia ad was horrid (as is anything that “Carlos Mencia” does.)
But I have to agree, the ching chong pandas were the worst. It was so blatant and pathetic.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 10:49 am ¶
Gregory A. Butler wrote:
I really don’t see the stereotype here – Romesh Chakrapuli (I’m spelling it more or less phonetically from when his boss Hank says his full name in the last scene of the commercial) a Willy Lomanesque inept salesman, who happens to be South Asian and have seven kids, uses SalesGenie.com and suddenly becomes the best salesman in the whole company.
Now, the SECOND ad, the one with the Chinese pandas, that was heavily stereotypical, but even that add didn’t seem that over the top racist to me.
And neither one of those commercials even TOUCHED the Taco Bell ad, or Mencia’s ad (both of which hit the Bigotry Daily Double – racism AND sexism!!!)
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 10:54 am ¶
Josh wrote:
this is so typical. it may not be overt racism, but its confirming stereotypes.
actually, i think that making a cartoon with an indian with an indian accent is racist because whoever made the ad knows that people like to laugh at the way indians speak english.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 12:10 pm ¶
Kristi Lonardo wrote:
Seriously? There are people who are reading this website who can’t see the overt racism in both of these commercials? The panda one caused my entire party to take note. Any stereotyping is bad, people. We can’t forget that.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 12:19 pm ¶
EH wrote:
I haven’t seen the Panda one. And like I said maybe the Indian one just flew over my head. I haven’t really been myself the past several weeks. I just couldn’t find anything wrong with it. The guy was Indian and had an accent. Are people upset because they think he shouldn’t have had an accent or they should have left the kid thing out? I feel so out of it lately.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 1:12 pm ¶
Katie wrote:
I don’t know how any person does not see the racism in this ad. Both of the SalesGenie ads were HORRIBLE and so racist. Everyone I was watching the Super Bowl with just stared at the TV, mouths agape, after these two ads came on.
I find the Taco Bell Fiesta Platter ad to be racist, but these SalesGenie ads were so racist I can’t believe that they were allowed to air on television. (They put tons of racist things on TV though so perhaps that isn’t a good sentence.)
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 1:18 pm ¶
Colin wrote:
The beer commercial by Mencia was worse.
It included a token Indian, token East European, token East Asian, token sub-Saharan African, and token Latino with of course the catch being that the women were just in it for the beer.
Disgusting.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 1:35 pm ¶
Ariah Fine wrote:
Yeah, I don’t get why they thought this was okay.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 2:02 pm ¶
EvilAngelfish wrote:
I think I would’ve been fine with the commercial if it had just been a hardworking Indian guy with an accent but the seven children is what killed me. It could’ve been a normal commercial if instead of having him stand with a sterotypically large brood when receiving his sales award, they’d shown him with his wife and one or two kids. Even “arm candy” would’ve been better.
The panda ad was just ridiculous.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 2:45 pm ¶
Gregory A. Butler wrote:
The Mencia add was out of the park home run racist!
He’s some sort of ESL instructor, trying to teach his immigrant students how to pick up White American women in a bar, by buying them beer.
Of course, the men were presented as “dorky losers”, and the women were shown as “drink whores”, just trying to get free liquor from random guys, even if they were totally disgusted by them.
In other words, Mencia, the master self-hater, scored a twofer – he both attacked immigrants AND women!
That, by far, was the most racist ad of the night – worse than the Taco Bell ad!
And that’s saying something, since the Taco Bell ad had a Mexican mariachi band stopping two White male office workers from having a working lunch.
After preventing them from going to their meeting, and making them sit down to a long “siesta” type meal (in other words, the “lazy” Mexican stopped the hard working White men from doing their jobs), the leader of the mariachi band proceeded to perv over a random White woman (simply by saying the Spanish word for “hello”).
The ad ends with the White woman dancing suggestively to the mariachi bands music, while seductively saying “hola” to the sleazy band leader.
Again, a Mencia-style two for one special – anti immigrant racism AND sexism, all in one disgusting package!
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 2:47 pm ¶
meownette wrote:
How about those stupid car website ads? There was some weird “tribal” something going on with those that I couldn’t quite pick up on through my beer/spinach dip haze…maybe?
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 3:45 pm ¶
HighJive wrote:
The Mencia comments bring up an interesting point: that is, does the source of the message impact the level of racism?
Anyone familiar with Mencia knows that’s his schtick. In fact, the Bud spot was pretty tame, by his standards. Not completely certain, but the spot may have been produced in conjunction with Bud’s Latino ad agency (the Mencia spots in last year’s Super Bowl were created by the Latino shop). Not making any judgments here, just stating some facts and hunches. Mencia was doing his thing, just as Will Ferrell did his thing in another Bud spot.
From what I’ve read, the Salesgenie.com work was produced in-house. That is, there wasn’t a typical ad agency involved, where someone might have said, “Um, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Then again, given Madison Avenue’s cultural cluelessness, maybe not. Don’t understand, however, why Salesgenie.com wasn’t banned by the network censors while GoDaddy.com was.
Anyway, just tossing in the proverbial two cents.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 4:03 pm ¶
Colin wrote:
HighJive,
What are the levels of racism? Not trying to be facetious.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 6:32 pm ¶
jmn wrote:
You know, if you’re going to be offensive and use a bunch of stereotypes, at least have the decency to give some Asian and South Asian brothers some work. They decided to animate it so they wouldn’t even have to hire us “ethnics.”
At least with the Bud Light/Carlos Mencia ad (which was just as offensive and stupid), they hired people to fill the stereotypes.
The SalesGenie campaign was created and produced by two native San Franciscans; Daniel Grace, Principal of Creative:Mint, and Geoff Callan, owner of Enough Said. http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=9722
Those commercials were made up of nothing but racist suckage. And I’m saying that from a completely qualitative analysis point of view. :p
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 10:44 pm ¶
HighJive wrote:
Maybe “levels” is not the right term. Perhaps “extent” or “severity” might be more appropriate. For example, Don Imus demonstrated racist tendencies. At the same time, he’s not on the same “level” (there’s that word again) as a hardcore KKK Grand Wizard. At least most people wouldn’t put Imus in the same category.
In 1997 Lawrence Otis Graham wrote Proversity, the title being a term the author coined to stand for Progressive Diversity. In the book, Graham identified three types of bias: Active Bias, Passive Bias and Deceptive Bias. Active Bias refers to blatant and open displays of biased behavior, where all parties are aware of the bias (for example, the Ku Klux Klan would fall into the Active Bias category). With Passive Bias, the source of the biased behavior is unaware of their bias, but the other involved parties are very much aware (Imus might insist he displayed Passive Bias). Deceptive Bias entails the biased party being aware of their attitudes and actions, but the other involved parties are unaware (Can’t think of a real good example here).
In some ways, Mencia might be in the Active Bias category, although he’s arguably doing it for the comedy and entertainment value—he might even hope everyone is in on the jokes. The people responsible for the SalesGenie.com spots are probably in the Passive Bias camp, although their Passive is pretty Massive.
Not sure where this is all leading. Not trying to say some racism is less awful than others. Just trying to explain the earlier “levels of racism” comment.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 10:56 pm ¶
Cynthia C wrote:
Slightly off topic, but on topic re: stereotypes: I’m wondering if people here have heard of Russell Peters. Russell is a comedian of Indian descent whose act basically makes fun of ethnicities, his own and others as well. You can find more info about him at http://www.russellpeters.com
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 11:15 pm ¶
Scribble@pobox.com wrote:
I must admit something about the Mencia ad: I found the first, Indian, guy funny. It was clearly because I could relate to the total ineptness, and I may sound like that too. Humor that works by “relating” works at most once, though, and it’s second-rate humor. Anyway, the ad got increasingly stupid and unfunny as it grew to its theme. I am tempted to call it merely “aesthetically” offensive–a bad work of art–but ads are not art. It seems best to say that it didn’t work on me, i.e. I don’t remember what it was meant to sell. But I remain un-offended by it.
There is a Sanskrit proverb that I am unable to translate compactly, which says roughly that imminent destruction goes along with crazed behavior. Each is an effect, and a cause, of the other. Since suicidally insane TV commercials are simply the most visible of the death throes of the TV commercial as such, they don’t so much offend me as fill me with hope.
Citizenship is a ways away for me, but hopefully not too extremely far. I seriously believe that by that time, The Televised Superbowl will be not be this overblown farce, so often conflated, unconsciously and absurdly, with being American. I don’t watch the Superbowl, just as I don’t watch any beauty pageant or awards ceremony. I think the day is not far when it is seen as a faintly silly “institution” of an aged, dwindling, segment, like the bow tie or the morning paper.
Posted 04 Feb 2008 at 11:47 pm ¶
Michelle wrote:
At the superbowl party I attended, everyone (all people who had some degree of non-European ancestry) was like “Whoa”! One even said to me….”There’s gonna be a whole lot to talk about with your racialicious people, huh?”
I didn’t even think those ads were real, they seemed like bad regional commercials for massage therapy school.
Carlos Mencia was crass and offensive, but for some reason, I was as dumbfounded by his commerical as I was by the SalesGenie. They used pandas for crying out loud! And an Indian guy with seven children! If it had been a Black man with seven children and six baby mommas it wouldn’t have been any more offensive, in my opinion.
Wait…you know what, i just realized why the Mencia ad was not as offensive to me. It is what HighJive said in his/her post. Carlos Mencia relies on that type of humour in his work. He is just cashing in on what he does for a living, being crass and using racial stereotypes to do it. If Eddie Murphy used his “Hercules” Fat Black Momma to sell Pepsi, it would be offensive, but it is the same thing as what Carlos Menica is doing to sell beer.
Posted 05 Feb 2008 at 12:02 am ¶
Scribble wrote:
Cynthia: I like Russell Peters. His ear for accents is subtle and his execution is superb. Certainly his is the only “Indian accent” that sounds believable to me. His making fun of desis etc does have a healing power, because there is a comprehensive healing vision behind it. So he does stand out amid the cacophony of shrill messed-up “extreme” comics.
But he is inoffensive, almost offensively inoffensive. I like to think he may have had the makings of a Chris Rock … but his extreme desire not to give offense has killed that possibility.
Really funny guy.
Posted 05 Feb 2008 at 12:10 am ¶
Scribble wrote:
HighJive: your post made me think of a little variation, perhaps another category of bias. It’s when everyone, speaker and listeners, act as if they are unaware of the bias. The listeners’ amazing reason, as far as I know: not to give offense! Calling a respected person on a racist remark, it seems, is much less polite than their making the remark.
But not acknowledging a remark doesn’t expunge it …
I don’t know what difference this makes at the public level, but at a personal level, “polite silence” is a crushing experience.
Posted 05 Feb 2008 at 12:42 am ¶
Jaye wrote:
Ok, I’m not trying to say the Taco Bell ad definitively was racist or wasn’t racist, but that this is just how I saw it:
I didn’t see the band as representing “lazy” Mexican people trying to stop the hard working white guys from their job. I saw the white people being represented as stressed out and kind of repressed, and that the band was trying to get them to slow down and enjoy life. The band represented an enjoyment of life. I didn’t see the band leader as sleazy, but maybe as a stereotype of the attractive Hispanic man with an appealing accent, like a French accent. Some people like that. He represented the attractive foreigner.
I don’t think that just because people use stereotypes, that therefore it’s offensive, tho sometimes/often it can be. There are many white stereotypes in ads and everything else too. What is offensive is that there aren’t different representations of POC, so that they are portrayed as more than a stereotype. It’s not as offensive with white people because they have so many images of themselves to choose from in the media. But I personally do not find that simply because there is a use of stereotypes, it means it is racist. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t racist. Maybe I’ve been brainwashed by this culture (I’m not being sarcastic).
Posted 06 Feb 2008 at 4:04 am ¶
amalgamine wrote:
apparently CEO Vin Gupta is a huge hillary supporter: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/us/politics/14gupta.html?pagewanted=1
yet another reason to support obama
Posted 07 Feb 2008 at 2:47 pm ¶