This swatch ad went viral for all the wrong reasons, especially among Asian people | Credit: SWATCH/AD/Delete
Swiss watchmaker Swatch has apologised for being perceived and criticized as a racist marketing campaign, pulling an ad featuring images of Asian men looking at them, several news outlets reported on Monday, August 18th.
Ads for the Swatch Essentials collection have been heavily criticized on social media in China. It has been reported.
“I sincerely apologize for any pain and misunderstandings that this may have caused,” Swatch said on Instagram. post. “We’ve noticed recent concerns regarding the model depiction of images in the Swatch Essentials collection,” the watchmaker said. “We dealt with this issue as the most important thing and quickly deleted all relevant material from around the world.” EuroWeekly News saw the first 100 comments on the post and found that they all strongly denounced Swatch against what they called a racist campaign. Most of them sought to boycott the company and criticised them for their intentional perception of discriminatoryness.
Other ads are racist too
However, in theory, Swatch should remove the second ad, which is part of the same Essentials campaign. This is also part of a very racist phrase. “Look at these Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees,” it was a nursery rhyme sung by children in schools in the United States and other countries over the years. Reader Digest and Wikipedia.
China is one of the Swatch Group’s biggest markets, but along with many other Western luxury brands, the world’s second-largest economy is slowing down and it is struggling to grow as consumers buy low-cost watches.
In July, the group reported a 11.2% decline in net sales for the first six months of the year. I said.
Swatch is not the first foreign brand to face racist ad accusations in China, the Guardian added. Italian luxury fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana was criticized in 2018 for a video showing awkwardly Chinese models using chopsticks to eat Italian food.
In 2023, French brand Dior caused anger in the ads as the model pulled the corner of the eye.
