Offensive ad unintentional, regretted

Prior to spring break our company, Zia Record Exchange, ran an ad in your publication for our jewelry and accessory sale. Apparently this ad offended some of the students on your campus. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone we may have offended. We sincerely did not intend to do anything more than bring people into the stores to check out our accessories.

Zia's marketing strategy is to be a little bit crazy and have some fun while differentiating ourselves from our stale, corporate competitors. Our ads are designed to stand out and be different. We get most of the pictures for our ads from old magazines. In this case, our artists came up with the headline, "Gals love guys who accessorize" first. They then began the search for an eye-catching, appropriate picture. When they found the African gentleman in his tribal jewelry, it fit perfectly because it stood out and featured noticeable jewelry. No one even gave a second thought to the color of the individual. Once completed, the ad ran through at least four proofs and at no time did any of us think that the ad would possibly offend anyone.

After we received complaints, we called the Wildcat and asked them not to run the ad again the following week as we had originally scheduled. Somehow through a "communication problem" the ad was run again, which I can assure you was not our intention.

Zia Record Exchange values every customer, regardless of who they are or what lifestyle they have chosen. In fact, we consider ourselves to be as open-minded as any business in the state. We would never do anything to deliberately offend anyone. We are truly sorry that somehow, in this case, we did just that. I assure you that we will take a harder look at our ads in the future.

By Steve Wiley (letter)
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 25, 1997