“This is just all about MIXING AND
MATCHING.” –Bayo ad

Advertisements
nowadays are made effective through the use of internet, television, billboards
and many more. These are used to campaign certain products in order to be made
popular and gain future buyers. But these ads can reflect different
interpretations through different perspectives. Certain advertisements are
criticized for lack of context, sensitivity and value; and Bayo’s recent
advertisement is one of them.Bayo
is a clothing brand enjoyed by many Filipinas for their many years of hip and
modern collection of different garments. Their most recent ad (as seen above), was
named “What’s Your Mix?” and was made public last June 2012. The main theme of
this ad was to show people that Bayo can create varieties in their clothing and
that there are many clothes to “mix and match” that can fit any personality.
They portrayed this message through the use of Filipina models with mixed
nationalities. The creators of this poster decided to go for the minimalistic
approach, which made it more noticeable, simple and more memorable than others,
especially if on a billboard.
This
poster for me is a good way to promote the clothing brand, because it is easier
to remember, the models used have fresh faces and the concept of having a
variety of clothes and accessories to choose from is very inviting. The poster had
a good design but I think the words that Bayo used to describe their theme was
inappropriate. I think that they were careless when they used those words to
define the concept of their collection. It is somehow telling people that being
pure Filipino is not enough and that it is better to marry someone from another
race. When they stated that “mixing and matching of different nationalities
with Filipino blood is almost a sure formula for someone beautiful and world
class”, it was a sure sign that it will offend people and cause a controversy.
And it did.

If
you search “What’s Your Mix Ad Campaign” on Google, most of what you’ll find are
different blogs commenting on the way this advertisement affects people through
racism. This advertisement, from most blogs, is seen as racist, promoting that
it is better to have a mixed nationality in order to become better at
something. This ad, although refers to the varieties the clothing brand can
offer, can be seen in the wrong light because of the longer explanation behind
the said poster. There are people who are open- minded that may accept this as just
another form of campaigning. There are those who might feel insulted because
they might see it as Filipinos being better off with foreigners in order to
conceive better versions of themselves; angry because this campaign promotes
racism; and indignified because of the sloppy words and misguiding statements
that this advertisement used. Others may also think that Bayo deliberately
conceived this form of misleading poster to cause a controversy so that the
brand can have free publicity.
But
I think that although Bayo is receiving plenty of negative comments, they
should still keep this concept for their promotion because it can really pull
people to buy from their stores. What they should do is to rephrase or change
their interpretation of their poster to lessen the negative comments and
misunderstanding that their words have caused.
How
about you?
What’s
YOUR MIX in this issue?
*images came from the internet, I do not claim ownership over them
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