Media Prima Ad Causes Public to Go Wild

Racism has been an issue that has been brought up over and over again ever since people started noticing their differences in color, shape and culture. There is no doubt that racism would be ending in the 50 years or so, but the society has slowly learnt how to treat sensitive issues like these. Our country, Malaysia which has been through lots of racial incidents, recently hit a speed bump during the Ramadan festival.

The accused

During the festive season, Media Prima Bhd launched a controversial ad on 8TV that brought the public to heavy criticism. The three public-service-announcement-based commercials were about a Chinese girl 'eating in public, wearing revealing clothing and being loud and obnoxious during the Muslim fasting month' (Yong 2011). Seeing that Malaysia has many cultural and situational context, for instance a very sensitive country, multi-race, strong Islamic overrules, and one sided, 8TV should have refrained from the act.

Besides that, the reconsideration of the ad should had went through advertising ethics first before it was aired. As explained by Chris Moore (2004), the choices made by people in advertising are never easy, like he said: 'they are never in black and white. They're subtle, shades-of-grey choices, juicy enough for a Philosophy major'. Referring to his theory, all ads should be thought of in many perspectives of the viewers before releasing them to avoid complications. Not forgetting the society's mindset, it is important to take that into account as the ad is for the multi-cultural society, so you can't please all sides.

Malaysia should be all grown up now.

In my view, there's no need for heavy criticism, a diversify country like Malaysia should have already achieve an agreement on issues like this a long time ago. Our country has been through so much, it should act maturely and calm about incidents like these. Advertisements should be creative, funny, and realistic.




Reference
Yong, HC 2011, 'Media Prima pulls out ‘racist’ Ramadan ads', The Malaysian Insider, viewed 13 November 2011, <http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/print/malaysia/media-prima-pulls-out-racist-ramadan-ads/>.

Moore, C 2004, 'Ethics in Advertising', Advertising Educational Foundation, viewed 13 November 2011, <http://www.aef.com/on_campus/classroom/speaker_pres/data/3001>.