Editorial Introduction

Abstract

Editorial Introduction Edward Timke 2020 was the year that took forever to pass. It was also the year that went by in a blur. It was certainly a year that won't be forgotten, especially in 2021 as we try to reopen schools, businesses, and gathering places while recognizing the need to make important cultural, economic, and political changes. This editorial introduction is being written on the eve of the anniversary of George Floyd's murder near the intersection of East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At the end of the harrowing first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Floyd's killing added fuel to a fire that was never put out on the call for social justice and racial equity in the United States and around the world. That tragic watershed event from one year ago is still fresh in the country's collective memory, especially as nearly 200 Black people have been killed by police in the US since George Floyd's death.1 On top of these tragedies has been the rise in hate crimes against Asian and Pacific Islander Americans since the arrival of the pandemic to the United States. Anti-Asian bias has always been present in American society, but the murder of six Asian women at spas in the Atlanta area on March 16 brought the issue of anti-Asian hate crimes to the mainstream if people had not already caught the news earlier.2 Hopefully, the recently signed Congressional bill addressing anti-Asian hate crimes will lead to action and change.3 So where do advertisers and marketers fit into our current moment's tsunami of cultural, social, and political reckonings? What has the advertising and marketing industry done to try to make diversity, equity, and inclusion a top priority? Two important articles in this issue of Advertising & Society Quarterly reveal some answers to these questions. In Sunny Tsai's (University of Miami) interview of Jeff Lin, Selena Guo, and Max Davidson, three executives from the multicultural agency Admerasia, one learns about the industry's efforts to tackle anti-Asian hate head-on while building community through innovative uses of data and social media. Additionally, in Part II of the Roundtable on Disability and Advertising, participants call for an expanded definition of diversity to include people with disabilities.4 When companies take all people's abilities into account in designing and evaluating ads and products, everyone is better off. Moreover, when companies realize that there are many intersectional layers to people's identities that can be a source of pride, such as disability, representations of people with disabilities can be more genuine and fair. Among this issue's original research articles are pieces that explore the responsibility advertisers and marketers have in using their powers of persuasion. Glen H. Brodowsky (California State University San Marcos) and Donald Sciglimpaglia (California State University San Marcos and San Diego State University) assess where advertising and marketing fit into what drives young people to drink beer and alcohol. Yasmin Gopal (Grand Valley State University) and Arpan Yagnik (Penn State Behrend) review the literature on what makes an ad go viral. They distill a variety of explanatory factors into a comprehensive model that will help practitioners, scholars, and students better sort out the nature of an ad's virality. Niels Niessen (Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) provides an in-depth reflection on Apple's global Shot on iPhone campaign. He questions the nature of the technology-driven American Dream represented in one of the iPhone's most famous campaigns and asks readers to think about what it means to take an instant photograph with a technology wrapped up in a system of exploitation and illusions of self-actualizing grandeur. This issue's installment of Author Meets Critics connects the history and future of marketing through a discussion of Mastercard's Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Raja Rajamannar's book Quantum Marketing: Mastering the New Marketing Mindset for Tomorrow's Consumers (HarperCollins Leadership, 2021). Rajamannar met with a handful of fellow marketing experts to discuss the rise of new technologies that have led to significant changes to the way marketing and advertising can be carried...