Marketers’ objective is to satisfy customers. That being the case, why is that they adopt designs and practices that hurt the religious or racial sentiments of a section of society. Definitely, consumers don’t accept that unless they are unaware of the truth or belong to a fanatic group. If the merchandise is sponsored by an extremist or fundamentalist group, then it can be accepted. But, often, we see big and popular companies indulging in these unacceptable acts. Sometimes, this is done in advertisements.
Hurtful products:
There are many incidences like the cover of Virgin Records with God’s image, Lord Krishna’s photo in Genre (Gay) magazine, Lord Ganesha and others; imprinted on the sole of sandals, God Rama’s image on sniff tissues, lunch boxes with images of goddess Kali and Durga etc. Hindu deities are commonly targeted in such episodes. Here is a list of such misdemeanors:
*London department store Harrods apologised to its customers for selling underwear and swim wear bearing images of Hindu goddesses. There was another department store selling toilet seats with images of a Hindu deity.
*Years back, Hindus, who passed by the display window of a shoe store in New York City were in shock as the store was selling footwear imprinted with the images of Shiva,Ganesha and Gayatri.
*Ikea sold toiletries with image of Ganesha printed on it and Tuinen BV put images of Lord Ram on sniff tissues.
*Amazon had put trousers with images of gods for sale on its portal. There were women’s leggings carrying the images of gods like Ganesha, Shiva and Brahma; pants carrying images of Ganesha and Shiva; and sneaker shoelace decorations carrying images of Vishnu and Durga.
Racism in advertisements:
