Sega Courts Hispanic Audience With Daisy Fuentes Pilates

[Anarien]

Actually, no, the only reason I noticed it is because some marketing shill decided to make noise about it.

Possibly, but marketing shills make references to their campaigns all the time. This stood out.

If Sega packaged and marketed its entire lineup bilingually, I would hail it as an outreach to the Hispanic market. This is not that; this is cynicism. Maybe that's good enough for you but I have higher standards and if calling it out for what it is makes me ignorant and shortsighted in your eyes, so be it. I'll sleep just fine tonight.

Exactly, you're too cynical about it, and in turn fail to see the potential significance of a campaign like this. You're calling it out for what YOU see it as, because what it is is obviously open to interpretation, given the opposing viewpoints expressed here. There's no need to insult me or my standards as they are quite high, thank you. But I can see beyond a narrow, cynical scope at the larger picture and the potential.

As stated by Naylor, and reiterated by me several times, this is kind of a test run. If it is successful then we may see more of this and hopefully across other genres. And you can bet that other companies are watching. As I said, someone has to be first. It has to start somewhere.

"This will be a good bellwether for what we plan to do there... If this type of product and marketing is successful, it's something you'll see more from us in the future."

 

[Anarien]

Why should anyone celebrate the rise of Latino privilege alongside White privilege?

You don't know what you're talking about. "White Privilege" actually refers to a line of thought in race theory (sociology). I hinted at it in saying that white, non Hispanic people are already being marketed to by default.

Peggy McIntosh described it as an "invisible knapsack" of advantages that white people have that aren't afforded to people of other races/backgrounds. It's different from racism because a lot of people don't recognize these benefits they are automatically granted.

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html#daily
These will give some idea.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

At least the woman on the box is rather attractive. However, I don't think Sega's really going to open any new doors, especially not with what is probably going to be painfully mediocre even as far as Wii exercise games go.

 

[Wandrecanada]

Actually, no, the only reason I noticed it is because some marketing shill decided to make noise about it.

Possibly, but marketing shills make references to their campaigns all the time. This stood out.

If Sega packaged and marketed its entire lineup bilingually, I would hail it as an outreach to the Hispanic market. This is not that; this is cynicism. Maybe that's good enough for you but I have higher standards and if calling it out for what it is makes me ignorant and shortsighted in your eyes, so be it. I'll sleep just fine tonight.

Exactly, you're too cynical about it, and in turn fail to see the potential significance of a campaign like this. You're calling it out for what YOU see it as, because what it is is obviously open to interpretation, given the opposing viewpoints expressed here. There's no need to insult me or my standards as they are quite high, thank you. But I can see beyond a narrow, cynical scope at the larger picture and the potential.

As stated by Naylor, and reiterated by me several times, this is kind of a test run. If it is successful then we may see more of this and hopefully across other genres. And you can bet that other companies are watching. As I said, someone has to be first. It has to start somewhere.

"This will be a good bellwether for what we plan to do there... If this type of product and marketing is successful, it's something you'll see more from us in the future."

You now quote the man suggesting the they should first test weather or not racial equality is a good investment. Think that over to yourself for a second and explain to everyone how this is a positive move for an equal rights movement in gaming.

As Andy explained to you already, it's not the act of employing a Hispanic in the lead role, nor is it the bilingual packaging. It's the fact that they are attempting to use these as some kind of platform to profess themselves something they are clearly not; A company that stands for progressive racial reform.

 

[Anarien]

Like I said: as this is an inclusion motivated only by profit, how does represent anything but the process of including Hispanics among the White identity, of turning 'Hispanic' from a Race separate from White into another White ethnicity while still retaining the White/non-White dichotomy of institutionalized power and privilege?

You still don't know what you're talking about.

In my neighborhood, which has a high Chinese population, I see marketing efforts for many products in Chinese. Are these campaigns trying to make Chinese people White? According to your logic, they are in a way. Your argument doesn't make any sense. It's about cultural significance. Marketing to and addressing a minority group in a tailored way doesn't undermine their identity or push them into the majority group. And it takes a hell of a lot more than marketing to a minority group to obtain any sort of real social equality. That's a mighty big leap.

Hispanic isn't a race, it's an ethnic group. There are White Hispanics. There are Black Hispanics. There are Asian Hispanics. People who are Hispanic can be of any race or more than one race. And it isn't necessarily limited by heritage since you can be culturally Latino without being of Hispanic origin. One of my friends is of German ancestry but was born and raised in Costa Rica. She's culturally Latina. (And people like Gisele Bundchen. She's of Brazilian nationality and culture and her family has been there for centuries, but she is ethnically German.)

Isn't games coming in English and Spanish an advantage afforded to English and Spanish speakers that speakers of other minority languages do not have?

Advertising is, on the whole, recognizing and appealing to the spending potential of the group that is being marketed to. In cases of bilingual Spanish-English campaigns, it is due to cultural significance, since there are enough Spanish speakers to support, appreciate, and keep bilingual labeling and campaigns alive. To make companies want to reach out to this market. When Chinese speakers make up a significantly large portion of the national population, we will see this happen with Chinese as well.



Reaching out to Hispanics is not knocking down the concept of White Privilege, (which it's obvious you didn't bother to read about). It certainly improves matters ever so slightly, but coming back to the responses from Malagrys indicating that the Majesco marketing person didn't tout the campaign for the Jillian Michaels game/and that this campaign stands out because it's a marketing shill promoting the campaign -- both of these things happen all the time in the games industry. But when it is for the majority of releases (almost always marketed at the default White, non Hispanic audience), nobody bats an eyelash and those instances usually don't earn similar scorn.