AN ADMAN'S "BRAND-NEW" ANSWER TO AMERICAN RACISM.
50 years after becoming one of the first AfroAmericans creating advertising for the world's biggest brands, Lowell Thompson tackles what he calls the biggest branding campaign of all, the branding of the human race.
"In 1968, 3 months after the nationwide riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I got my first job in a big-time advertising agency, Foote, Cone & Belding. It was a time when corporate America first opened its door to non-white folks. I walked right in. I was 20 years old."
For the next 35 years, working for other agencies, Thompson created ads and commercials for brands like Coca Cola, McDonald's, United Airlines, Tasters Choice, Kemper Insurance, Washington Mutual, Allied Van Lines, Proctor & Gamble's Tide, Miller Brewing Co., Budweiser, Bisquick, Michelob Golden Draft, International Harvester, and more. But it was only after he became a writer/artist that it hit him that what he'd learned in advertising could help solve America's oldest, most seemingly intractable problem. "I suddenly saw that the techniques and tactics ad agencies use to brand products and services are similar to the ones 'Amerocrats' used to brand people 'White' or 'Black'...as well as 'Redskins', 'Wetbacks', 'Japs and so on" Thompson says. "The idea that humans can be color-coded and divided into separate, distinct 'races' (with 'whites' on top and 'blacks' on bottom) is one of the wrongest (and deadliest) in human history", Thompson says. "It started when Europeans began the conquest of the Americas."
"Branding Humans" shows how and why this idea took such deep roots here. Call it, "Thompson's Theory of Human Branding, (TTHB)".
"Americans were sold on this idea just like we were sold on McDonald's hamburgers, Coca-Cola, Kellogg's Cornflakes, and other brands. And for the same reason. Profit and Power". "The rise of Trumpism and white nationalism is the supremacists' last gasp/grasp for 'brand dominance'. It's time to build a newer, truer, hipper, full-color brand for America now...to finally reject the centuries-old pseudo-science of "race". "It's time for U.S. to embrace the Whole Human Spectrum...and show the world its beauty and power", Thompson says.
True to his creative roots, Thompson lays it all out with a quick, witty, no-fat, "adstyle" that even white supremacists can understand, and might, if they let themselves - enjoy.
