KFC has been accused of racism after a suspect Australian ad made its way to the United States. This ad was originally aired at Australia where no stereotype or criticism was achieved from the viewers. However, once the clip was posted onto Youtube, viewers seemed to be offended and controversy stirred up. In the ad, there is a Caucasian man in the middle of a football game surrounded by African Americans. The Caucasian was standing in the middle holding a big cup of KFC’s chicken strips as the African Americans were jumping up and down, cheering. The Caucasian man then yells, “Need a tip when you’re stuck in an awkward situation?” and lifts up the bucket of chicken strips for the African America’s to eat. Depending on how you view it, some people may say that he is being racist to the black people because he is saing that African Americans live off KFCs, which puts KFC into a cultural clash. The controversay became so inflamed that KFC removed the ad from Australia. This ad seems like a reference to the racial stereotype that all black people eat fried chicken. However, the KFC in Australia argues that they are being misinterpreted in a different culture. They say that it is just a light-hearted reference to their cricket team. Australia and the West Indies are rival cricket teams, which further give Americans the impression that the ad was intentionally targeted at the West Indies. I personally would not have thought that the Australia KFC’s were intentionally aiming to upset the African Americans; nonetheless, I definitely would have noticed the culture clash. Because there are some people that do not know about the popularity of crickets in their culture, many would not fully understand their message. If KFC wants to avoid being accused, they should make their message clearer when presenting their ads.
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Sources:
http://mashable.com/2010/01/10/kfc-ad-racist-youtube/
http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/14952/racist-australian-kfc-ad/