The Chinese brand that gained extensive international press for its ad that sees a black man transformed into an Asian man with laundry detergent, has responded to the furore.
The ad for Qiaobi laundry detergent was initially run in cinemas in China earlier in the year, however over the weekend the ad was posted to Facebook in the US, and it was subsequently called out for its racist nature.
The full spot sees a Chinese women lure what is understood to be her boyfriend over the washing machine, she then puts a detergent capsule in his mouth and shoves him into the washing machine. A few seconds later he emerges as a “clean” Chinese man.
It was also spotted quickly that the ad appears to be very similar to one done nine years ago for an Italian brand which has the tag line 'Coloured is Better', which has the opposite result, where a white man goes into the washing machine and emerges black.
The vice president of branding at Qiaobi, Li Jun, responded to Campaign Asia-Pacific's request for comment, saying that the ad's creative was merely done for “comic effect”.
“The creative process was meant to add a bit of delight by using a little artistic exaggeration. It was merely for comic effect; there was no intention to stir up emotions or show disrespect to other nationalities. Friends in the media, please understand. The creative work was completed by a different company, and we only found out later that there was an Italian work like this; I can't reveal the team/agency who did this," she says.
The brand also posted an apology on its Weibo account which said: "We regret that our advertisement led to controversy and have no intention of shirking our responsibility. We have stopped airing the advertisement and have removed links to the offending video. We hope that internet users and the media will also stop disseminating the video."
AdAge is reporting that the brand is now trying to erase the video from the internet, with the brand removing all traces of the ad from its WeChat account. This hasn't stop other users uploading the ad to both Facebook and YouTube.
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