Pardon me for mixing sports concepts by introducing the hockey term 'hat trick' into a football discussion.
And understand that when I use the term "offensive" here, I don't mean the rushing/passing/scoring prowess that the NY Giants displayed in Phoenix.
I mean that Salesgenie.com, who proclaimed their goal to have the worst ad on the Super Bowl, not only achieved that goal, but went on to offend three large groups of people:
- The Indian subcontinent
- China
- Any intelligent viewer
Fortunately for them, their ad has not caused the avalanche of discussion that drove the Snickers "Mechanics Kissing" ad to be the second most talked about ad after the game last year. But among the little discussion Salesgenie is getting, Cymfony has tracked that half of it includes criticism of the ethnic stereotypes used or accusations of outright racism. Here are a couple of examples:
"The worst: two Salesgenie commercials that used ethnic stereotypes and weren't the least bit amusing." Source: See you at the yard, Meat
"Don't doubt for a second that Salesgenie is going to face protests over this. I just talked to a spokesman for OCA, an Asian-Pacific American advocacy group. "We found it really racist," he says. "We'll be discussing how to respond..." Source: Portfolio.com
"I hope that Salesgenie goes under after their incredibly racist commercials." Source: Forumopolis
Totally agreed with you Jim. As an Asian-American watching the show with my kids, I was absolutely horrified by the stereotyping. It's made all the more painful by the fact that CEO of SalesGenie is Indian and wrote the ads himself.
But what struck me is the double standard that Fox follows, where they challenge and pull risque ads from GoDaddy, but not one that pushes a demeaning stereotype.
So I join the calls that SalesGenie should be called on the carpet for their ads -- but let's not also forget that Fox is at fault for allowing them to even see the light of day.
Posted by: Charlene Li | February 05, 2008 at 06:32 PM