Topic Introduction

This blog project was inspired by a piece written by Debra Merskin (2001) titled The Persistence of Stereotyping of American Indians in American Advertising Brands. Merskin’s piece served as a launching pad for my own investigation into the use of Native American imagery and names in advertising and branding.

Advertising & Branding

Having worked in the professional world of marketing for many years, I am well aware of the power of the media and of advertising. As stated by Kang (2004),

Advertising as “signifying practices” gives meaning to words and images. Through this process, advertising diffuses its meanings into the belief systems of the society. As Shudson (1984) put it, the promotional culture of advertising has worked its way into “what we read, what we care about, the ways we raise our children, our ideas of right and wrong conduct, our attribution of significance to ‘image’ in both public and private life. (p. 1)

Advertisements, to a great extent, tell us who we are and who we should be (Lazarus, 1987). Cultivation research illustrates that viewing frequently repeated themes in the media influences our perceptions of social reality (Carpenter & Edison, 2004, p. 3).

John Berger (1972) wrote of publicity images (those used in advertising and branding) that “we are now so accustomed to being addressed by these images that we scarcely notice their impact” (p. 130). Yet these images tell us much about how we should view people and the world around us.

Native Americans in Advertising

With the documented impact that advertising has on our culture, we realize how significant the portrayals of different minority groups in advertising can be. In the case of Native Americans, American advertising has a long tradition of exploiting their image and names in order to sell goods. This commodification and corruption of their names and images leads to distorted views of Native Americans by not only other populations, but by Native Americans themselves. Native Americans “must” act or look a certain way in order to be “true” Native Americans. Merskin stated, “Racial and ethnic images, part of American advertising for more than a century, were created in “less enlightened times” but have become a part of American popular culture and thought and persist to this day” (p. 160). The image that has emerged of Native Americans is “always alien to white” and, thus, seen as not fully human (Merskin, 2001).

As Merskin (2001) wrote about in her article, we have, to a great extent, become desensitized to the use of Native American imagery and names in advertising. So much so, that we often do not realize how prevalent this practice still is. I know that I am guilty of this as well. Even with as fascinated as I was by Merskin’s article, I thought that most of what she talked about largely related to advertising of the past. Then I opened my November issue of Glamour magazine and found a full color, two-page advertisement for American Spirit cigarettes with its use of an American Indian in headdress in its branding. As I looked at the advertisement with a bit of disbelief (not only because of the branding image, but also because there was still a cigarette ad in a beauty magazine, with all we know about the unhealthy effects of smoking, in November 2011!), I glanced at the bottled water I was sipping from. The bottled water company? Arrowhead! Maybe there was something to this notion of Native American imagery still playing a significant role in advertising today… So, I set out on a journey to find and take a look at Native American imagery and names in advertising and branding.

In the course of my study, I found that one of the ideas that is perpetuated through advertising is the equation of Native Americans with nature and, thus, environmentalism. This is an association that, although not necessarily bad, is not one that Native Americans asked to take on. Nor is a connection and association with nature something that all Native Americans innately feel, despite what advertising and branding using Native American images would leave one to believe. This conflation of Native Americans with nature and the environment is nothing new. The cinema has made this connection many times throughout the years. American Indians are often portrayed “as a noble hero or first conservationist” (Merskin, 2001, p. 163).

What follows in this blog are entries on different brands I found that evoke Native American imagery and stereotypes to sell their product and my commentary on what I found. In particular, I focus on brands and companies with who sell an idea of nature and environmentalism through the use of Native American imagery or names. I will look at some brands and images from the past, as well as the present in this project. (Please note that I do not address in this blog the use of Native American figures and imagery in sports mascots. This is a fruitful area of study, but one I chose to separate from my focus for this project.) As you read through this blog, I welcome any thoughts or commentary and would especially appreciate suggestions regarding other brands/products that I may want to look at.

References

Berger, J. (1971). Ways of Seeing. New York: Penguin Books.

Carpenter, C. & Edison, A. (2004). Taking it all off again: The portrayal of women in advertising in the
past forty years. [Academic paper, university of Alabama].

Kang, M. (2004). The portrayal of women's in magazine advertisements: Goffman's gender analysis
revisited. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 1-10.

Lazarus, M. [Director]. (1987). Still Killing Us Softly [Motion Picture]. Cambridge Documentary Films,
Inc.

Merskin, D. (2001). Winnebagos, Cherokees, Apaches and Dakotas: The persistence of stereotyping of
American Indians in American advertising brands. Howard Journal of Communications, 12: 159-169.