Bad Idea: Using Racial Slurs in Ads

What were these ad folks thinking? 

 

Maybe the better question should be... Were they thinking at all?

Automotive News reports on a thoughtless move by General Motors' ad people when they approved a spot that uses racial stereotypes offensive to Chinese people.  As bad as it is anywhere, anytime, it's especially dumb for a company that's looking to sell more product in China.

Automotive News says "GM wants to expand sales in China and plans to spend $11 billion through 2016 on new plants and products in the country. GM is targeting 5 million deliveries in China by 2015. Sales of GM and its Chinese joint ventures increased 11 percent to a record 2.84 million last year. The company already sells more vehicles in China than its home market."

So creating an ad that calls China "the land of Fu Manchu" where all of the girls sing "ching, ching, chop-suey" is a perfect way to endear your brand with the people of the world's most populous nation, right?

The problem lay in someone's choice of music, since the offending references are part of a song that is used in the ad.  The ad's theme  is a throwback to the 1920's era, but surely the creatives at the agency could have found appropriate music without offensive lyrics.

The ad for Chevrolet didn't run in China.  It ran in Canada and also was used online in Europe.  But these days, anything can be seen worldwide and we need to be sensitive to everyone's feelings.  The South China Morning Post saw it and yesterday reported on the ad, calling it "racist" in the story headline.

"Our intent was not to offend anyone and we're deeply sorry if anyone was offended," a GM spokesperson told Automotive News.  "We're reviewing our advertising approval processes to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Someone was asleep at the switch, that's for sure.