The Cranky Media Guy

I’d love to link to this article, but the cheapass New York Times has most of its content behind a Magical Mystery Wall.  Anyway, the story is about the company that sells Uncle Ben’s Rice is changing Ben’s image from whatever it was before (slave? sharecropper?) to the “Chairman of the Board.

“’Through the magic of marketing, we’ve made him the chairman,’ Mr. Shands said. Uncle Ben’s office, he said, is ‘reflective of a man with great wisdom who has done great things.’

Magazine ads in the campaign, which carries the theme ‘Ben knows best,’ present a painting of the character in a gold frame with the chairman’s title affixed on a plaque.

The painting is also on display on the home page of the redesigned Web site, which offers a virtual tour of Ben’s office. Visitors can browse through his e-mail messages, examine his datebook and read his executive memorandums. ‘It’s important consumers begin to hear from Uncle Ben,’ said Mr. Howell of Masterfoods, who is based in Los Angeles.

“Despite the character’s impressive new credentials, some advertising executives expressed skepticism that the campaign could avoid negative overtones.

The ads are “asking us to make the leap from Uncle Ben being someone who looks like a butler to overnight being a chairman of the board,” Ms. Kern Foxworth said. ‘It does not work for me.’”

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s GREAT that an imaginary black man can move on up in his imaginary world.  Soon he’ll get the vote.

Hey, Ms. Kern Foxworth, why you tryin’ to keep a made-up brother down?