The carbonated beverage company has been accused of airing an advert that is very offensive for many people of Mexico.
Coca Cola aired an ad promoting its brand earlier last month and received heavy criticism from the audience who labeled it as ‘racist’. The ad shows a group of white people who are bringing the brand to an ‘indigenous village’ in Mexico. The ad further shows that these visitors from the city who are trying to introduce the brand into the village help these locals build a Christmas tree from wood and plastic coke bottles caps.
The main reason for the criticism that the ad received was because it showed that over 81.6% of the people living in Mexico are colonial and not unity. This campaign is known as “Open Your Heart” that has been brought forward to these villages.
Elvira Pablo, a native lawyer at a press conference held in Mexico stated that such an activity for mere publicity in clear terms promotes racism and discrimination. He added that such promotion is putting a form of label on the standard of life that we are living and furthermore putting a culture of consumerism there.
The advertisement was pulled off by the carbonated soda company on Tuesday after it was heavily promoted on YouTube and later trashed on social media. However the video can still be found on different web pages with various names.
In a statement a spokesman from Coca Cola told Eater, a food news website, that the company’s intention was never to promote such an insensitive act of discrimination and racism or even underestimate such native/ indigenous group. He added that the video that created such fire is now off the television and the internet and they have apologized for if they caused anyone trouble or hurt anyone’s feeling.
The video has falsely stated that over 81.6% of the people living in Mexico who are part of the indigenous group do not speak the language Spanish and feel left out about it although the source for this statistic has not been cited in the advertisement.
Furthermore, to send a response to the company’s comments on the matter, Alliance for Food Health made a video that include a number of Mexican people who are speaking in various languages and are talking about the carbonated drink’s influence on the community. One of these people stated that over 50 years ago the concept and cases of Diabetes type 2 was very rare but now that has changed drastically over the past few decades and has now become an epidemic.
Another person added his view to the video saying that since Diabetes type 2 is happening more frequently now, so the people of the community to stay united, tend to preserve their dignity and take care of their health and culture and to do so the people of Oaxaca, drink tea, clean water and tejare.
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