When Amazon, Pepsi & other brands courted controversies, got into trouble for being insensitive

Late last year, luxury brand Dolce & Gabbana stirred up controversy with its promotional videos. Offensive to the Chinese, the videos were deemed racist.

Here is a look at five other times that brands got into trouble because of their insensitive choices.

1. Amazon
In January, the e-retailer giant got into trouble because of their range of baby clothes, mugs and bags with the slogan ‘Slavery gets sh*t done’ and an image of the pyramids. They were listed by third party sellers on Amazon’s UK website. The products were taken off from the website after inviting the wrath of shoppers and activists, who used the incident to throw light on modern day slavery in certain parts of the world.



2. H&M
The fashion brand kicked off 2018 by inviting a lot of criticism after an image of a black child wearing a hoodie with the slogan ‘coolest monkey in the jungle’ surfaced on its online store. After much criticism from shoppers, including The Weeknd, the shirt was pulled off the US site. “We are deeply sorry that the picture was taken, and we also regret the actual print,” the company said in a statement. “Therefore, we have not only removed the image from our channels, but also the garment from our product offering globally.”


3. Dove
In October 2017, beauty brand Dove missed the mark by a mile with its insensitive commercial featuring a black woman in a brown shirt, taking her shirt off, to turn in a white woman with a light shirt. This commercial played into the trope of associating black with dirty and white with purity. The outcry against the commercial was swift. A spokeswoman for Dove said that the commercial “was intended to convey that Dove Body Wash is for every woman and be a celebration of diversity, but we got it wrong and, as a result, offended many people”.


4. Nivea
In April 2017, Nivea sparked controversy with their advertisement that featured ‘white is purity’ slogan. The skincare brand apologised for the insensitive commercial, claiming that “diversity and equal opportunity are crucial values of Nivea” in a statement. But the incident was reminiscent of the brand’s 2011 controversy, which featured a chic black male clutching the afro of a mannequin’s head with the tagline ‘re-civilize yourself’. Nivea had apologised then and called the advertisement ‘insensitive and inappropriate’.


5. Pepsi

In April 2017, a Pepsi commercial featuring Kendall Jenner spurred heavy criticism for being tone-deaf and insensitive. The commercial featured attractive young people with generic protest signs laughing and high-fiving. In its climactic scene, a police officer accepts a Pepsi can from Jenner, while everyone around grins and applauds. Activists criticised Pepsi for trivialising on-ground reality while misrepresenting police brutality faced by protesters. “No one is finding joy from Pepsi at a protest,” said Elle Hearns, a former organiser of Black Lives Matter.