We once made a commercial for Walkers Poppadums.
They were little crisps with an Indian flavour.
Chris Bardsley wrote the script, Paul Weiland shot it.
We had an Indian Elvis (Las Vegas period) singing in a corner shop.
He had a turban, and a sitar slung guitar-style round his neck.
He had a backing group of 3 girls in saris.
He sung, “Keep your gums off my Poppadums” to the tune of “All Shook Up”.
He was a good looking guy, sort of like a younger George Michael.
Anyway, the commercial was really funny.
It ran, and went down really well.
Then the Daily Mail ran an article about it.
They called up the young guy who starred in it and interviewed him.
They asked him if he wasn’t ashamed to be taking part in a racist commercial: something that would make his people a laughing stock.
I loved his reply.
He said something like, “It’s a particularly white conceit that you think you are the only people confident enough in who you are to be able to laugh at yourselves.
You think every other race secretly wants to be white.
So you don’t mention their ethnicity, you treat it as a disability to be politely ignored.
Well I am a Sikh, and we consider ourselves second to no one.
We don’t want to be white.
We are very proud of who we are.
We have absolutely no insecurity about our race whatsoever.
That is why we can laugh at ourselves.”
It reminded me of a radio commercial for Bergasol sun tan lotion that Ron Collins wrote at WCRS.
The script was just Ronnie Barker’s voice throughout.
He sounded like a posh Englishman who talks as he rubs Bergasol all over his body, while lying in the sun.
As he talks his accent gradually changes to Jamaican.
It uses the medium brilliantly, because the sound creates the visual.
A man going from pasty white to rich brown in 30 seconds.
I asked Ron if he got any complaints about the ad.
He said, “Yeah, about eight. All from white people.”
So when you’re writing an ad, remember.
You may know perfectly well that you didn’t mean to insult anyone.
You may have checked it out, to make sure no one will feel insulted.
But don’t forget, there are some people who see it as their job to get insulted on someone else’s behalf.
And they’re just looking for the opportunity.
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The thing I love about this blog is that most of the stories can be applied to almost every situation in life, not just advertising. In a sense it really helps to understand certain situations in your personal life and that’s what makes it so interesting to read. Because once you understand the people you are dealing with, it’s a rather easy step getting them to buy brand A instead of brand B.
I remember the wonderful Ron Collins commercial.
Is there any chance you could embed a link to the radio spot into your post?
Hallo Dave
I remember your TV spot.
It must have been in the late 80s when I was preparing to go to London to look for a job.
I love the spot - especially the part with his shoes curling up.
I remember wishing I have something like that in me reel. I still don’t.
What’s worse, the D&AD reel that spot was on has since become ruined by fungus - a disadvantage of being in the Far East.
I remember years ago, people wanting to ban Enid Blyton books because they found her ‘racist’.
Amazing the things some people would say.
Ah well, whatever.
I remember a great quote by Mohammed Ali when he was visiting the ruins at the World trade center.
A reporter asked him how he felt about sharing the same religion as the suspects who commited Sept 11th and he simply replied, “How do you feel about Hitler sharing yours?”
On that note, i had a great print idea for a non alcoholic beer client at BBDO, Berlin(where i was working) that no one in our office wanted to even look at. I said I would present it personally to this German beer client and they refused internally to even show it to him.
They were more offended then I was and Im Muslim!
I found nothing wrong with it, i even sent it to the marketing department at Cobra beer, London. They wanted nothing to do with it either, I even tried to do it through a friend working at TBWA Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, im not sure what happened there yet.
Right now it sits in my RIP section because everyone finds it offensive.
Shame.
ps Do you have a non alcoholic beer cleint??
I did one of those old ‘Lilt Man’ ads once.
Nothing I’m massively proud of, but it was the first one to give the Lilt man the upper hand, rather than just characterise him subserviently serving rich westerners.
Anyway, it turned out to be one of the most complained ads of the year for being racist against white people.
Sometimes you just can’t win
Ciarin.
You’re asking for a level of technological understanding way beyond me.
But, if I can get hold of the commercial, we have a younger man here (James) who may be able to do it.
i did a beer commercial once set in a sushi restaurant that featured sushi chefs going nuts. we (all whites) were a bit worried about offending Japanese-Americans so we did some research. not only were they not offended by it, they were happy to see ANY representation of Japanese culture in mainstream media.
I know what you mean Vinny.
My wife’s family (all Chinese) fall about at Benny Hill’s Chinese gags (Broody Herr) partially I’m sure because they like to be portrayed as part of mainstream UK comedy.
Even though I don’t think they’re funny, they love ‘em.
Sorry, I have never been accused of writing a racist ad but inciting paedophilia, yes.
Me and my partner were on placement about 10 years ago at Parners BBDH. The brief was to tell people how easy, I think it was BT, their internet products were.
We wrote an ad with a child’s hand holding a computer mouse - so easy even kids can use it. It was blown out because it was promoting child pornography. I suppose it is as simple as kids + plus computer must = child porn.
The fact that it was the child using the computer hence watching the porn never came into it.
I am more than happy to except the fact it was a shit ad - but paedophillia…
Going back to the thread, that walkers ad was amazing, we used to sing it at school, the crisps were nice as well shame they went.
remember “Mind your language”?
Did anyone really find that offensive? I mean most of the actors in that show were making fun of their own nationalities.
I once did a piece on a World War II prison camp run by the Japanese.
It was truthful - massive research was done at libraries - and the tone was deliberately ironic.
It was my 2nd year in advertising and the famous CD I was working for reckoned it was good.
But when it was shown to the clients, they hated it.
Not because it wasn’t well done.
They felt it was too honest.
And since their major clients were Japanese, they were afraid that the Japs would boycott them.
So the piece got killed.
Later that year, for the same client, I had to do a brochure for an Eastern religious festival.
So, more research.
Turned out that according to history, the festival has something to do with a man turning into a beast and then raping his relative.
When I had done the copy, the same client decided to run it by leaders of that Eastern religion.
And the religious guys said, “no way am I going to allow that to run.”
“Why we wasked? Is it not true? Did we make it up?”
“No, what you’ve said is true, but I can’t allow that to run,” the religious guru said.
So, another piece of work died.
Not from research but from fear.
Sad, huh.
the world is changing, I’m sorry
dave,
that’s funny. and kind of sad. i remember feeling a bit sorry for the Japanese-American council who OK’d our ad. it wasn’t like we were advancing the status of japanese culture.
i seem to recall your agency (GGT) also getting into trouble for something about creme eggs and sikhs? maybe you had left at that point. or maybe i’m mis-remembering it. it was late 80s.
You’re right Vinny, well remembered.
It was a campaign Paul Grubb and Dave Waters started about how everyone had an individual way of eating their Creme Egg.
“Stick it in you gob, Bob” or “Give it a lick, Mick” or “Give it a suck, Chuck”.
Then Mary Wear and Damon Collins did a cartoon of a guy unwrapping his turban with a Creme Egg underneath and the line “Keep another one handy Gandhi”.
The Cadburys factory in India got bomb threats apparently.
Eventually the UK trade magazine “Asian Grocer” had to tell everyone to calm down.
A team in New York about fifteen years ago had written a TV script for Barrons which (gently) spoofed the Amish.
They agonised for ages. Would it cause offense? How many would complain? How far could they push things?
It was left to the junior Acount Man to ease their worries:
“Um, you can say what you like, fellas: the Amish don’t have televisions.”
I love that Rory, that’s great.
By that reckoning could we take the piss out of, sorry, spoof the visually impaired?
this line is so apt: there are some people who see it as their job to get insulted on someone else’s behalf.
on the other hand there’s a nice story on some Holocaust musem or something (it was published in One Show winners some 6-7 years ago).
team did some really good stuff but had worries about how the holocaust victims would feel. they explained their doubts with the client and the client’s reply was: ‘do you reall think that people who survived holocaust would get offended by an ad?’
the campaign ran. it was really strong. and won in Cannes, as well.
so there’s hope.
I once attended some research groups in Leeds where some beer drinkers were talking about being British.
They were all a bit shy about about the subject. They weren’t sure they could talk about it. Some of them felt it was a little racist: like the BNP had hijacked the whole notion of Britishness. Except one guy.
He said: “Britain is a great place, and there’s nothing wrong with being proud about it. It’s still a land of opportunity. And there are some great traditions here that are worth feeling good about. I’m proud to be British.”
He was the only non-white guy in the room: his grandfather had come over from Pakistan in the fifties.
My old agency, the Leith Agency, did loads and loads of memorable (and complained about) ads for Irn Bru.
I myself did an ad with a baby reaching a hand out of the womb to grab a can of Irn Bru,
The agency did some belters. A baby at the breast saying “Mmmmm. Mum’s been at the Irn Bru again”. A boy band saying “We’d go straight for Irn Bru”. Even an ad with a Mum who reveals to her kids she used to be a man.
But only one ad got the client a death threat. It was a Jersey cow saying “when I’m a burger, I want to be washed down with Irn Bru.”
So you can offend anyone you like. Apart from those cuddly vegetarians.
I know what you’re saying Angus.
The most complaints we ever got was for an ad for a company that repairs brakes for cars.
Dave Waters had a hedgehog spokesman speaking to camera about bad brakes.
He then turned and walked off revealing he’d been squashed flat.
A lot of people got upset on behalf of ahedgehogs..