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The internet went into overdrive after Swedish fashion giant H&M placed an image of a young black kid wearing a hoodie that read ‘coolest monkey in the jungle’ on its UK website.
Many criticized the image as tone-deaf and racist, wondering how in the hell such a picture could have possibly made its way onto the official H&M site.
Singer The Weeknd, who has in the past produced menswear collections with the chain, said he would be cutting any future relationship with the company due to the ad.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Weeknd says he's cutting ties with H&M after being 'deeply offended' by an ad for the retailer showing a black child in a hoodie bearing the phrase 'Coolest monkey in the jungle.' <a href="https://t.co/KsAyauZnXO">https://t.co/KsAyauZnXO</a></p>— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBCAlerts/status/950468852948840448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 8, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Mr Alex Medina, who works in brand design, said it was negligent to place a black child in a top with such a slogan, while white children wore others: "In the year 2018 there's no way brands/art directors can be this negligent and lack of awareness. If look at other sweaters in same category they have white kids. We have to do better."
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">H&M has apologised for the model below wearing a "coolest monkey in the jungle" jumper. <br><br>Do people not stop the person who thought of it and say, "this might not be a good idea?" <a href="https://t.co/Ag9MHMgs6t">pic.twitter.com/Ag9MHMgs6t</a></p>— Seán O'Regan (@SeanOR95) <a href="https://twitter.com/SeanOR95/status/950378114701516800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 8, 2018</a></blockquote>
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A spokeswoman for the retailer said: "This image has now been removed from all H&M channels and we apologise to anyone this may have offended."
H&M is a Swedish fashion retail giant that employs some 160,000 people and has 4,300 stores in 64 different countries all over the world.
Shops have been introduced to the power of internet ads going viral in the past year already. Dove, owned by Dutch company Unilever was forced to apologize in October 2017 when a social media post that the company said: "missed the mark" representing black women. Introduced with the line "Ready for a Dove Shower?" the video, which has since been removed, showed a black woman removing a dark brown t-shirt to reveal a white woman.
Furthermore, the Nivea brand, which is part of German company Beiersdorf had to pull an ad in April 2017 which said: "white is purity".
Source:
https://www.ad.nl/buitenland/henamp-m-door-het-stof-wegens-coolest-monkey-in-the-jungle~ab1afa02/
He does look kinda cool….