MARKETING EXPERTS GO STEP BY STEP

THEY EXPERIMENT, RETREAT AND TRY AGAIN  

(Photos in 13th except métros)

In 2023...

• In March, one side of a poster challenges, the other reassures:  

The same idea: 

•  Blacks are associated with the French Révolution (in May 2023)...

At m° Bastille

The colors are those of the French flag, red branches evoke flames and the street lamp recalls a song about hanging nobles from a lamp post ("Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira, les aristocrates à lanterne... les aristocrates on les pendra").

• But in June, the Black is almost a tanned white, yellow replaces red and the details disappear:

The ad appeared again in 2024.

 # # #

By spring 2024, Blacks might (gently) dominate

Le m° Nationale, 13e

# # #

The models are almost always young, pleasant, happy — and cut from the same cloth:

Their origin is unimportant. 

# # #

  And all at once it is —

this ad next to the Barbès métro breaks new ground:

(In June 2024)

A few months later a marketeer has a Black dye her hair to suggest the renewal of a brand associated with white blond goddesses.

Left, the petty-bougeois 13th (crossroad avenue de Choisy/rue Tolbiac, Septembre 2024) ; Right, upscale Saint-Germain (rue de Sèvres in January 2025).

Most ads last a week or two.

This one began in the fall 2024

and was still there the following spring.

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Next,

Publicists' tactics and a downside to ads' racial mix