Colorblind?

Most Hondurans are brown. Like most people groups there is a range of pigment in the population. They are not as dark complected as other Latin Americans, and are darker than others.

I don't bring this up just as a ethnic curiosity. My actual curiosity is in how much of the advertising I encounter here seems oblivious to the ethnic reality choosing instead to portray very Caucasian looking models. And it is not just a matter of North American companies duplicating their ad campaigns here. Even the advertising for exclusively Honduran (or Central American) businesses like my bank tend to use very anglo-american looking models.

My curiosity with this is in part due to the excessive political correctness observed in much American advertising. Who hasn't chuckled at the absolutely improbable groups of fresh-faced ethnically diverse young people gracing the web pages of colleges and universities. (If it is a Christian college, at least one of the young people will be holding a guitar as well.)

But more importantly I wonder about the message that is being sent. Why are white people the standard? To whom are they appealing? Are the advertisers appealing to what they believe is a wide tendency to regard the European/American model as the image of what is desired? Are they trying to create that image? Are they heedless of their audience? Or, if the ads target the rich and the rich have North American tendencies, what messages are being sent to the rest of the people who see these billboards?

I honestly don't know. But it niggles at me.