Universal Pictures made different Straight Outta Compton trailers for black, white and hispanic audiences, according to claims made at the SXSW festival.
It’s thought that bosses from the company teamed up with Facebook to “customise” them.
Universal’s head of digital marketing Doug Neil told an audience that most white people in America were unaware of rap group N.W.A, according to Business Insider.
It seems the thinking was centred around the idea that white audiences are more aware of Dr Dre, a founder member of the group, from Beats headphones than from his music.
“The trailer marketed to them on Facebook had no mention of N.W.A., but sold the movie as a story of the rise of Ice Cube and Dr. Dre,” he said.
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Facebook said in a statement to Newsbeat: “Several news outlets have stated that Facebook allows advertisers to target ads based on race. That is not accurate. Facebook does not have a capability for people to self-identify by race or ethnicity on the platform.”
Although people cannot be targeted by race on the platform, it’s still possible to make and post different versions of the trailer.
One trailer could have been something like this one Newsbeat found on the official Straight Outta Compton Facebook page.
Or this one, which also has no mention of N.W.A.
Whereas this trailer mentions the group.
However, it is not uncommon for studios to make trailers for specific markets.
Take for example, Star Wars.
There were trailers made specifically for Japan, with new dialogue, different shots and new names.
And some films clip trailers based on where certain scenes were shot around the world, like Transformers and the Fast and Furious Franchise.
Newsbeat has contacted both Universal Studios and Facebook for comment.
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Source: BBC