An advertising campaign of Swatch aroused indignation on social networks and accusations of racism, due to an image of an Asian man making the gesture of bridling his eyes with his hands. The brand removed advertising but boycott calls were virulent, especially from China.
Negative comments were raining on Instagram on Monday, users of the social network offending a “racist” and “discriminating” campaign and praying to consumers to no longer buy the different brands of the Swatch group.
An advertising image for the Swatch Essentials collection has particularly shocked on the Chinese continent, and beyond: it shows an Asian model pulling her eyes up with her hands, imitating the “bridled eyes”.
“This gesture has been used to discriminate all Asians, and not only the Chinese, for decades and it is of public notoriety that this limit should not be crossed,” commented a person on Instagram.
“Sincere apologies”
In a publication on this social network, Swatch claims to have “noted recent concerns concerning the representation of a model in images of the Swatch Essentials collection” and have “immediately removed” all the images concerned worldwide.
The iconic brand of the Bienne -based group ensures the utmost importance to this question and has presented its “sincere excuses for any inconvenience or misunderstanding that this could have caused”.
Users were many of them to estimate that it is a “misunderstanding” is “typically a racist attitude”. Contacted by the AWP agency, Swatch was not immediately available.
China and Hong Kong represent 24% of exports from the Swatch group and are still its first market, despite a strong decline due to the crisis in the real estate sector.
At 9:25 am on the Swiss Stock Exchange, the Swatch bearer lost 1.4% at 136.80 francs, in a SLI market down 0.22%.