The advertising regulator has cleared Cadbury of racism and perpetuating colonial stereotypes of African people in its latest TV advertising campaign.
Cadbury's campaign featured Ghanaian musician Tinny and aimed to promote the chocolate brand's tie-up with the Fairtrade organisation for cocoa from the African nation for its Dairy Milk range.
The Advertising Standards Authority received 29 complaints that the TV campaign was demeaning to African people and perpetuated racial stereotypes.
However, the ASA's council has decided not to formally investigate the complaints. "Although the council acknowledges that Cadbury had used stereotypes in their ads, they felt that the stereotypes were not harmful or offensive," said the ASA, which argued that most ads use some form of stereotype device to get a message across.
Cadbury has steadfastly maintained that the company went to "considerable lengths" to ensure that the ad campaign was culturally sensitive and developed as a "joyous and uplifting portrayal of Ghanaian culture and something which Ghanaians can feel proud of".
In 2007 the ASA banned an ad for Cadbury's Trident chewing gum, which featured a black "dub poet" speaking in rhyme with a strong Caribbean accent, after more than 500 complaints that it was racist.
The ASA has received 91 complaints about the ad which have claimed the ad is "racist, degrading and portrays a negative stereotype of Afro-Caribbeans," said an ASA spokesman.
The advert was produced by JWT and features a Jamaican comedian doing a skit on chewing gum. JWT said the ad, which concludes with the poet chanting "mastication for the nation," was supposed to reflect dub poetry performers such as Benjamin Zephaniah.
The £10m campaign is supposed to help Trident compete aginst Wrigley's 95% share of the UK chewing gum market.
Article #3
Monkey advert 'resembling' Obama is pulled in Japan
Friday 27 June 2008
A Japanese mobile phone firm said today it had pulled a TV advert depicting a monkey as a political candidate amid accusations that it was a racist reference to Barack Obama, who is seeking to become the first black US president.
The ad, for eMobile, shows a monkey in a suit addressing an election rally, surrounded by supporters carrying placards with the word "Change".
The apparent intention is to persuade subscribers to other mobile phone carriers to transfer to eMobile.
But the combination of the monkey, and the resemblance of his message to the theme of Obama's campaign - "Change we can believe in" - prompted bloggers to accuse the company of making a racist slur against the Democratic hopeful.
The company, which stressed it had used the macaque mascot in several other adverts, said it had never intended to insult Obama but had decided to pull the "Change" ad in response to criticism in the blogosphere.
"We had no bad intentions, but this is a cross-cultural gap issue and we have to accept it," eMobile's chief executive, Sachio Semmoto, told Reuters. "There are African-Americans in Japan, so we decided to take prompt action and shut down the ad."
Semmoto went further, describing the senator from Illinois as the kind of leader who could benefit not only the US but also Japan. "For two years I've been saying Obama has the capacity to change America, the kind of capacity that Japan needs," he said.
Monkeys are revered in Japan, and their image can be found at numerous Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, but eMobile's choice of animal for this ad did not impress the foreign blogging community.
Zurui, in a message to the Black Tokyo site, wrote: "Well it seems like the ugly head of racism has reared its big head again on Japanese television.
No comments:
Post a Comment