Bob McCarty Writes

In a post nine months ago, I asked the question, Will Election of Barack Obama Open Window of Truth in Home Security System TV Commercials? Today, I can report some improvement:  One of the two companies highlighted in my previous report has changed its ways, while the other continues to paint an inaccurate picture of crime in the USA.

PRE-ELECTION

Prior to the election, the typical home security system commercial featured a bad guy either busting down a door or breaking a window at a home owned by a vulnerable person (i.e., a single career woman, an elderly lady or a child home alone).  Because every home featured in these commercials is equipped with a home security system provided by the company paying for the spot, the commercials always end with the bad guy running away upon hearing sirens activated by the professionally-installed alarm system.

In January, I reported that 7 out of 8 of the spots produced by the nation’s two largest home security systems companies — then known as Brinks and ADT — and found on YouTube, featured Caucasian men as the bad guys whose criminal actions were foiled by the home security systems.

Citing credible statistics, I took offense to these findings:

From 1976 to 2005, blacks committed more than 52% of all murders in America. In 2006, the black arrest rate for most crimes was two to nearly three times blacks’ representation in the population. Blacks constituted 39.3% of all violent-crime arrests, including 56.3% of all robbery and 34.5% of all aggravated-assault arrests, and 29.4% of all property-crime arrests. – Investor’s Business Journal, April 28, 2008

POST-ELECTION

Today, I ran a new search to find out whether either of the two companies –  ADT Security and Broadview Security (the new name of Brink’s) — had changed their ways as a result of my previous observations.  As it turns out, only one did.

ADT, it seems, has moved away from the heart-pounding, crime-in-progress commercials to spots like the one below that highlight the company’s knowledge, technology and expertise.

Broadview Security, on the other hand, appears to have added three new spots (below), all of which feature — drum roll please — only fair-skinned would-be criminals.  Pay close attention to the last one as it offers a video montage of several pseudo assailants in one 30-second spot.

I would contact representatives of Broadview if I thought it might produce a reasonable explanation.  Because they didn’t respond last time, however, I’m not going to waste my time again.