[Verginius Rufus]

The first "Safelite" ad that ran (at least the first I saw) had a black man touting the company. Later they had a mix of whites and blacks. Maybe they realized that whites would think it was a black-run company and be less likely to patronize it.

When I'm in Europe I notice that the actors in commercials are almost always whites. I recall a "Fanta" ad that had a black person but there were several other people in the ad and they were white. But the ads seem to focus the attention more on the product than on the actors.

[Varda]

Mix of actors is fine by me. Ads with ordinary people working like black delivery man or someone using an appliance is OK. What I don’t like is racist/sexist memes. The stupid white guy in the insurance ad. The husband doing housework while the wife smirks. That stuff turns me off.

[alexander_busek]

When I'm in Europe I notice that the actors in commercials are almost always whites.

That does not jibe with my personal experience.

In the early 80s, I saw nary a Black actor in t.v. ads. The only Black actor / entertainer I saw was Roberto Blanco.

But at least since the late 1990s, there have been more and more (chiefly) Blacks in German t.v. commercials. Can't really speak about the current situation insofar as I haven't watched regularly for about 15 years. Occasionally, I'll accidentally catch a commercial for some product marketed by a global conglomerate, with predominantly Black actors or esp. mixed-race families - but then I'll assume that the ad was produced in Great Britain or the U.S. (the dubbing is quite obvious).

In the case of the use of chiefly Black actors specifically in U.S. commercials - that might constitute a skewing of 200-300% (i.e., 2 to 3 times greater representation than their true presence in the general population). I could live with that.

But the commercials with blatantly mixed-race couples?! That constitutes a gross misrepresentation, with them appearing maybe a THOUSAND times more frequently in t.v. ads than in real life.

My wife receives lots of fashion catalogs in the mail - from German apparel companies (i.e., not multinational or U.S. companies), and roughly three-quarters of the models are Black.

That might have some arcane physiological / psychological explanation. (Maybe light-colored fabrics typical of summer wear look "better" against dark complexions.) The (female) models also have a certain Ethiopian look to them - maybe Ethiopian women have an almost unnaturally slim body structure that makes them better "clothes horses."

Regards,