Skin sells – so long as it’s white

KALW News’ Managing Editor Ben Trefny recently made a trip to the hardware store.

BEN TREFNY: So I went to the hardware store to buy an air purifier. And I’m looking at the boxes and trying to figure out which one to buy. And this one says, “Honeywell is the brand more doctors prefer.” And it shows a picture of this white guy in a doctor’s coat with a big smile on his face. And I’m thinking, “Why’d they choose that guy?”

Yes, when it comes to advertising, white people are everywhere. Just drive up and down Highway 101 and look at those billboards of people chillin’ with their brand new iPads. How many minorities do you see?

Ethics aside, there’s a reason for the whiteout. A study conducted last month found that online shoppers are more likely to buy from a white seller than a black one. Two Stanford University doctoral candidates in economics set out to sell an iPod Nano online. They used different pictures in different ads in different parts of the country. In some, the iPod was held by a hand that was clearly white. In other ads, the iPod was held by a black hand.

Jennifer Doleac is one of the researchers, and KALW’s Hana Baba sat down to talk with her in this interview.

Jennifer Doleac is a doctoral candidate at Stanford University and author of the study "The Visible Hand: Race and Online Marketing Outcomes".