Gays reacted the most positively toward ads featuring gays and noted in some cases that they were predisposed to buy the product simply because the company supported the gay community. Minority viewers tended to react favorably to targeted ads because of heightened levels of felt similarity with a distinctive source cue. However, you can't just put a white person in an ad and expect whites to react. They need to sense some other similarity with the ad. Because whites are less conscious of being white per se, they have to have other cues in the ad that are not racial.
Advertisers use different cues, such as gender, ethnicity, or age to target an audience.