Product Packaging Causes Accusations of Racial Stereotyping

Last Updated on February 19, 2022

The packaging of a wearable baby carrier is at the center of a social media firestorm of accusations of racial stereotyping because of who is and isn’t shown on cover photos.

I will admit it…it took me a bit of time to figure out what the “problem” actually was when I saw the box. What do you see when you look at this image of two versions of the packaging for the Baby K’Tan?

Let me tell you what I see as a single white guy who has no kids: I see people who seem to be happy wearing their baby in a kind of sling. That’s about it. If I really study the “casting” of the photos, I would notice that one box has just a female and the other has a couple.

If I really stop and analyze the thing — and I don’t know why I would — I might notice that the black female is shown solo and the white female is shown with a man I would assume is her husband.

But not everyone sees it that way.

I saw a conversation on a friend and former colleague’s Facebook wall about the two images. The perception for some people is that the company is perpetuating a racial stereotype that leads people to believe that black women have to raise children without a father present, while white families are more “together.” The assumption of guilt on the part of the consumers against the company becomes the reality, so the company must be prejudiced against black people.

I understood the problem once I looked at it and started reading the reaction, but the fact is, not everyone sees the same thing the same way.

And therein lies the problem.

When I commented on this piece, pointing out that it wouldn’t have occurred to me that a stereotype was being perpetuated with those two product covers, a female responded that it was probably a typical reaction from a man. A woman — particularly a black female — would be much more likely to see it differently.

I get that.

But prejudice can sometimes be more in the eye of the beholder than in the eye of the sender. For its part, Baby K’tan responded to the controversy in a blog post:

The photo in question shows two Baby K’tan Baby Carriers on the shelf at an unidentified retailer. One Baby K’tan product features an African American woman holding her baby, and the other Baby K’tan product features a Caucasian couple with their baby. This portrayal has left many of our loyal patrons concerned that this is an unfair representation of African American families. Furthermore, the box bearing the African American woman was inaccurately priced lower than the box with the Caucasian couple. Let’s address these pressing matters head on:

It then goes on to make two other points, including pointing out that the product pricing of the “organic” variety should be higher than the product pricing for the non-organic model, which is something no one angry over the photos even cares about, and then adds an interesting point about the race of the couple depicted: it’s a caucasian woman and a Hispanic man, which makes it an interracial couple.

Really?

The point isn’t whether the one couple depicted is interracial. The point is that only one of the boxes has a couple when all of the others are single women. Why bring the guy into it to begin with?

The answer, likely, is that no one at the business saw a problem with it. That could be a result of a lack of diversity in the company’s marketing department, and/or a lack of diversity in any focus groups that might have been brought in to offer their opinion on the product packaging. That, naturally, assumes two critical points:

1. That the company’s marketing department isn’t diverse at all, and
2. That the company used focus groups at all.

I daresay that not everyone who is black would see what others saw. It would be just as much a racial stereotype to suggest that all black people react the same way to every single image. It’s at least a possibility that the company’s marketing department is diverse, but that no minorities spoke up because they didn’t see the problem.

And not all companies use (or can afford) focus groups to approve everything, particularly focus groups set up by marketing consultants as part of costly research projects that are useful but can carry a hefty price tag.

I asked this question of the people who suggested that more diversity would have prevented the problem of “unconscious differentiation:”

How do we decipher “unconscious differentiation” vs. packaging design diversity? How do we decide whether we might be looking for or assuming some intent that may not actually be there or completely missing something that is blatantly intentional?

Do you have an answer?