Hey fam!
Hope you’re having a kick-ass day today!
(lol)
Real quick:
(Sidebar: Today’s blog is kinda controversial. But I have mixed feelings about this topic so I had to share. If only to see what you think.
Consider yourself warned…)
Ok. I have an experiment.
As you’re surfing the web today, and in the next few days or so, take notice of something.
Take a look a the text ads and the banner ads on the various web pages that you browse.
(I know we like to forget them and pass right by them, but I’m asking you to take notice.)
Now you’ll notice that a lot of the ads only have text. Which is fine.
But for the other ads, the ads with “people,” pay attention to something:
Notice how many ads prominently feature black people.
Black men and black women.
People of color, generally.
See, I had to face this recently.
On my website, Stephanie Rose Heat.com, I now feature adult products. Specifically adult DVDs.
And I feature each company on its own page.
Which means I had to add information about each company on my website. And not just information, but text ads and banner ads that feature that particular company.
So I looked at several adult companies and I looked at their banner ads.
And I noticed something.
Very few had people of color.
Almost all featured caucasians.
Which concerned me.
As an African-American lesbian whose entire website is devoted to the beauty of black women, I need to prominently feature black women on my site.
Black women are my number one subject and black women are my major audience.
And, in doing everything I need to do to run my company effectively, that includes paying attention to who’s featured in my banner ads.
And I noticed that very few of the companies had black women in their text and banner ads.
(Sidebar: Now I’m sure that at this point someone reading this is not impressed.
Someone out there may be like, “Good. I’m glad there are no black women in adult advertising.”
Other people may think that I’m crazy for even wanting black women (and men, for that matter) to be portrayed in “that way.”
But this isn’t a debate about whether African-Americans should be featured in adult ads.
Nor is this a debate about whether adult entertainment should even be allowed in our country.
This is more of a debate about what happens when you see a company not servicing a large segment of the population.
To me, this is more about the responsiveness of various companies throughout the world.)
So what I decided to do, was send emails to certain companies and ask them if they had text and banner ads that featured black women.
This is basically what I wrote:
Hi there!
I’m excited to become a partner with Company XXX! I love the videos you have, and I think my customers will too.
I have a quick question:
I run an erotica website for women of color (Stephanie Rose Heat.com)
Is there any chance that you could have text and banner ads (regular, gif and flash) featuring black women? Black lesbians, even?
This is my target audience and I think it’d be great to feature the type of women I cater to.
Thanks so much!
Nikii aka Stephanie Rose 
Now I wrote two companies in particular.
Company A? Didn’t even respond. And it’s been several days now.
(Color me disappointed.)
Company B? Well, here’s the text of the email they sent back to me (within just one day, mind you):
Dear Stephanie,
We can definitely customize a banner for your website. Please let me know exactly what you are looking to display? What size?
I will have our art department create something for you and I can email you the banner with the correct link to our site.
Thank you,
Ms. XXX
And when I followed up with my specifications, here’s their second response:
Hi Stephanie,
Let me see what I can do. I also had a question about linking to our site. Do you want to link to the front page, Black catalog or maybe search, let me know so I can also email you the link with the banner.
Thanks,
Ms. XXX
Now I have to say that I’m impressed.
Because like I said before, this isn’t about whether adult entertainment should exist or not.
To me, this is about what happens when you bring an issue to a company.
How responsive are they to your concerns?
And I’m glad to see that at least one company “gets it.”
Now carry that on to the larger “mainstream” media.
And I think you’ll see a valuable lesson.
If you patronize a particular company, but you don’t think there are enough people in their advertising that represent you, you have a right to contact the company.
And a good company will respond.
And a good company will try to rectify the situation.
Because they think you’re a valued customer.
And that’s always a good thing.
Here’s to never hesitating to make people take notice.
Much love