A Priest and Imam…

Post-election results have produced a wide range of emotions, whether positive or negative, regardless individuals and organizations have made their voice be heard on where they stand. Immediately after it was apparent that Trump had won the 2016 Presidency, my Facebook and Twitter became flooded with their personal opinions and feelings, most negative, hopeless, and distraught. The posts that were the hardest to read where those full of negativity and hate, rather than taking this tough outcome as a time to come together and work as a unit instead of against each other.

With Trump making his views on Muslims apparent by calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our countries representatives can figure out what is going on” (Reisinger, 2016). This statement caused a world of chaos and backlash from both sides, including Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. President-elect Trump and his supporters went on to be “criticized during the campaign for espousing rhetoric interpreted as anti-Muslim” (Reisinger, 2016).

In recent weeks, Amazon released an online advertisement for Amazon Prime that included a Priest and Imam sharing tea together as friends, and concluding with sending each other the same gift. They used this online marketing to “deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers” (Wikipedia, 2016). In addition to promoting Amazon Prime, Amazon wanted to communicate that “We are people first” (Goldman, 2016). Yes,we are all human, but must “embrace the things that make us different, but we’re all very much the same” (Goldman, 2016). With this advertisement being released a couple of weeks after the election can make it appear to be a political movement, but Amazon spokeswoman, Julie Law, says there was none, “This advertisement was produced and booked to appear on TV before the election result was known, so this certainly isn’t a reaction to that” (Goldman, 2016). She goes on to say that this was filmed prior to election results.

Right after the release of the advertisement, Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, made a public statement by tweeting the video and how “proud” he was of his advertising team for creating it.

https://youtu.be/Ouu6LGGIWsc

Will there be more organizations to release similar advertisements? While watching the video, it hit a soft spot and was happy to see a positive outcome from post-election results.

References:

Goldman, D. (2016). Is Amazon going after Trump with its new ad. CNNTech. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/18/technology/amazon-ad-priest-imam/

Reisinger, D. (2016). Watch the Amazon ad that tries to heal America. Fortune. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2016/11/18/amazon-ad-priest-imam/

Steinberg, B. (2009). The future of tv. Advertising Age. (Nov 30). Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/future-tv/140751/

Wikipedia page on online advertising (click and read the links on specific types of online advertising.) Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_advertising