Posted on 10/25/2018 4:58:08 AM PDT by TigerClaws
In a surprising apology, Mountain Equipment Co-op, the Canadian outdoor apparel giant, admitted to helping advance the “vastly incorrect notion” that the outdoors is for white people only, criticizing decades worth of its own advertisements and catalogues for depending almost exclusively on white models to sell wares.
“Outside is for everyone,” MEC CEO David Labistour said in an open letter Monday. “It’s time we acted like it.”
The letter — titled “Do white people dominate the outdoors?” — includes a collage of old MEC ads: white people hiking and biking and rock climbing and cross-country skiing; white people in khaki shorts; white people rafting in wetsuits
It was an unorthodox move, since the apology wasn’t pre-empted by scandal — as has become the norm — but by quiet feedback, as well as an online survey of outdoor leisure and sport habits across the country, according to the company. In an interview Tuesday, Labistour said the tendency to use white models in advertising had “just been a traditional thing.”
“It’s how we grew up. It’s a historic part of our organization and the industry,” he said. “It’s been our industry paradigm. And it’s been, kind of, what we’ve always done. And sometimes we have to shift that paradigm.”
Monday’s apology was coupled with the unveiling of a new MEC “initiative,” bent on changing “the way we represent the outdoor community.” The move, MEC clarified in a statement, comes after employees and co-op members requested more diversity in the company’s ads.
“We know we’ve been part of the problem,” Labistour wrote. “This initiative isn’t about patting ourselves on the back. It’s also not about me, another straight white male with a voice in the outdoor industry.”
Labistour told the National Post that revamping advertising to feature more people of colour would help attract a more diverse workforce for MEC stores. “We have to be seen as a brand that represents the diversity of Canada in order to attract the diversity of Canada,” he said.
City folks know what we country folks are like, though. ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrong_Turn_(film_series)
Yep. The agenda is thick. If you onky watcged television you would think 89 percentage of Americans were black and 90 percent of white women have black husbands. My theory is the obvious push for mixed race couples is the end result is kids that are considered black. Blacks overwhelmingly vote democrat. End of story.
Ahem. Per If Canada used American racial categories, Canada is 81% white. Blacks make up 3%. The largest minorities are South Asian and Chinese at 4%.
So an all-white commercial with an Asian in every 3rd or 4th commercial DOES represent Canada's "diversity."
Performing arts major at university. Finding no info on his new wife. “Made in Canada” fading out at MEC. Related links below.
https://biv.com/article/2017/10/2017-bc-ceo-awards-david-labistour
https://commons.bcit.ca/broadcastnews/2018/03/01/mec-to-drop-brands-related-to-the-nra/
I 4wheel, and camp extensively all over the state of nevada, and with the exception of the black rock desert, I have never seen Black people. The few I have seen around the black rock are generally college age males traveling with a group of white freinds
Simple fact is that blacks prefer urban settings.
Couple of years ago this was discussed here at FR
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3428526/posts
Gov’t has been spending tax money to find why.
https://dailycaller.com/2016/08/17/govt-spends-100k-to-figure-out-why-black-people-dont-go-to-parks/
NY Slimes reported on this back around 2010 or 2011
I believe that the US National Park Service has created a special outreach program aimed at ‘black’ & ‘minority’ populations that have not participated in the “Park Experience”. This was after some minority NPS Employees got the usual suspects to make the mouth noises about the unfairness of it all.
The old truism about ‘leading a horse to water’ seems to escape their attention span. Your government at work!
I get a bunch of free subscriptions to magazines. I went ahead and ordered some which I would not normally read. They are your typical high end stuff full of ads for expensive things.
I have noticed that often maybe 60-70% of people in these ads are Black. Actually it is astounding. It is clear that whatever their advertiser is, they are selling a lot more than expensive perfume.
Camping. It’s a white thang. You wouldn’t understand.
It’s just absurd. So blacks, in general, don’t like the outdoors and whites do. To each his own.
Somehow it’s racist to advertise to your target audience now. I want to see more white people in Nike commercials. Still won’t buy them. Idiots.
Ref: Post 27 - you beat me by 7 seconds!!! LOL!
About 30 years ago, I went on a winter church retreat at camp in northern Michigan. In our group was a guy named Dave who happened to be black. He was raised in the city and probably hadn’t seen two trees together before.
We were at the camp sledding hill and Dave decided to go back to the main camp, about 1/4 mile away. The road was easy to follow.
At lunch, I didn’t see him so I checked the cabin to make sure he wasn’t asleep. He wasn’t there either.
I asked the retreat leader to announce and see if anyone had seen him.
He described him as six feet tall, shaved head, red jacket. I finally stood up and said “It’s the black guy” whereupon everyone finally realized who we were looking for.
We quickly organized a search party. About an hour later, My and my search partner found him. He was still walking but close to full blown hypothermia.
As we warmed him up, he told a story of walking across a frozen lake and seeing three deer. He said he screamed and ran, thinking the deer would chase him.
I told him that the deer were more afraid of him since he was the first black guy they’d ever seen.
“They’ve replaced all the Whites with minorities, on their new crap, garbage website:”
My first thought upon seeing that is that this is an urban outdoor company and not serious about extreme outdoors.
Perceptions in marketing matter.
I used to see older black men fishing a lot in the canals in the Metro-East area of St. Louis, and at Wolf Lake in Chicago. Those aren’t exactly backwoods locales, though.
A few years back the National Park Service started making an effort to encourage minorities to visit parks because they were vastly outnumbered by whites.
[I don’t do much camping, or hiking, but the times I have, I’ve never seen black families out “enjoying the outdoors”.]
There’s an “ap” for that now. No need to get the bottom of your shoes dirty trudging through the woods anymore. LOL
It's virtue signaling with profit in mind.
I see where you're coming from, but if I refused to deal with any company that ticked me off over something political I'd have to move to the wilderness myself, and eke out a subsistence living.
For Pete’s sake already. This whole topic is making me sick.
I see all kinds of colors, in all kinds of adds on tv, and I think it’s mostly gibberish cr@p that they have to show to demonstrate they’re a diverse outward looking company!
if my wives skin colorPick a product, pick a company. THEY’RE ALL DOING IT!!
I think I’m the most unrepresented. Guess my sex, and color? Guess if I’m a heterosexual, guess if my wife’s skin color matches mine? So many commercials out there to blur what America was vs where “they” want to to take us!!!
Remember-diversity is our strength-—gack!
Just let people be people already!
Sick of the social engineering cr@p!
I think that's because so many of them grow up in urban areas that they haven't been exposed to the things one finds in the woods or open country. Dump me in an inner city and I'd probably be just as terrified.
I did come across a nice wilderness area where I saw minorities. So I also saw graffiti and utes blocking traffic and staring down drivers.
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