Cadbury’s has apologised and withdrawn an advert that compared a chocolate bar to Naomi Campbell, referencing her stroppy, prima-donna-ish behaviour.
La Campbell and some silly pressure groups have been shrilly announcing their displeasure at this advert, which is an insult to blacks everywhere and is basically the same as if everyone who works for Cadbury had dressed up as Klan members and set fire to a burning cross outside her house:
“I am shocked. It’s upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me, but for all black women and black people. I do not find any humour in this. It is insulting and hurtful.”
Now, this was a silly thing to do from Cadbury’s, especially as they got into trouble not so long ago for another misjudged advert featuring a ‘giant, rotating negroid head’, but how exactly is this racist? Chocolate is brown; Naomi Campbell is black so is comparing one to the other in an entirely different context indicative or racism?
Hardly, but in an age where virtually every act committed by anyone in the world has to result in a public apology it’s hardly surprising and someone should have foreseen this.
What’s disappointing is that a number of people beyond the ghastly Campbell appear to be jumping on a rather ramshackle bandwagon. Three people in the country complained about this, as is their right. They may have felt that the ad was naive and misjudged, but it’s all so depressing whenever people cry racism with the slightest prompting.
Does anyone genuinely believe that a massive multinational would okay an ad that compared chocolate to a black woman on the basis of her racial make-up?
Personally I don’t, but by the same token I wouldn’t have believed that Cadbury’s would, twice in rapid succession, release adverts that could be attacked on the grounds of mocking black people.
Anyway, here’s a strapline for that ad that might have been racist:
“Like Naomi Campbell, it’s brown”