Bakers Delight has dropped an ad showing two young girls tied to Christmas lights with their mouths shut and stuffed with food after complaints they allegedly perceived to be portraying child abuse.
Incident Comes To Light
An image of the ad was taken at the Currambine Central shopping center in Perth over the weekend and sent to the Collective Shout, a major campaign against female genital mutilation and sexual abuse of girls.
‘Collective Shout’ To The Rescue
Melinda Tankard Reist, founder of Collective Shout, said the image had crossed the boundaries of a festive tone.
Collective Shout campaign manager and PhD graduate Caitlin Roper was among those who posted the photo on social media.
“Afraid to look among the girls who were arrested and gagged for selling lemonade? Has your marketing team made up of the wrong women, Bakers Delight? ”She wrote.
Collective Shout described the Bakers Delight ad as “chilling”
“It does not matter what the serious issue of child abuse and abuse is. Did Bakers Delight consider how survivors of child abuse might feel about this promotion? ”They said.
“This is a joke about silencing noisy children with sweets.
“There is a common belief that ‘noisy’ women need to be silenced, in this case the food is put in their mouths.”
Many people were outraged by this ad and posted comments on social media, calling the bakery chain its annoying advertising, calling it disgusting and disruptive.
What Did Bakers Delight Say?
It made Bakers Delight pull the ad and apologize. The intention of the franchise wasn’t portrayed as it was supposed to towards the general public and it happens to the best of multi-national corporations when they commit blunders in their ad campaigns.
“As a family-owned business, Bakers Delight does not condone domestic and / or child abuse in any way and we are deeply concerned that some aspects of our current marketing campaign may be offensive,” the statement said.
“Taking lightly important issues such as child abuse was not our intention and we apologize to anyone who may have offended her unintentionally.
“Listening and responding to feedback from our customers is the way we continue to grow as a business and as a result, we have instructed our bakeries to remove the poster as soon as possible.”
But Ms Roper told NCA NewsWire ads that they were carefully designed, so it was clear it was a deliberate choice to use two scared-looking girls with “touch” and “Ho Ho Ho” references.
“The intent was clear,” he said.
“It’s funny that we have to call this the time we live in.”
Founded by Roger & Lesley Gillespie 40 years ago in 1980, Bakers Delight is a large bakery-owned shopping center in Australia with shops near New Zealand and Canada. It was founded in 1980 as a single bakery on Glenferrie Road in the Melbourne area of Hawthorn, Victoria. Bakers Delight has more than 700 bakeries worldwide.
