Cadbury Apologizes To Naomi Campbell For Chocolate Ad, But She's Still Mad

Earlier this week, supermodel Naomi Campbell was offended by chocolatier Cadbury's new ad for its Bliss bar, which declared, "Move over Naomi, there's a new diva in town," and prompted her to say, "It's upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me, but for all black women and black people. I do not find any humor in this. It is insulting and hurtful." Now, Cadbury has removed the ad and issued a statement on its website:

Cadbury understands that our latest advertising campaign for Cadbury Dairy Milk Bliss caused upset to Naomi Campbell and her family. Cadbury takes its responsibility to consumers very seriously indeed and we would never deliberately produce any marketing material we felt might cause offence to any section of society. It was not our intention that this campaign should offend Naomi, her family or anybody else and we are sincerely sorry that it has done so.

We can confirm that the advertisement is no longer in circulation and we will not be using it in future marketing for Cadbury Dairy Milk Bliss.

We have been in discussions with Naomi‘s solicitors and can confirm that they have accepted our apology on her behalf as a conclusion to this issue.

The famously hot-tempered Campbell told the Guardian, "I'm pleased that Cadbury have made a 'sincere apology' in regards to their Bliss ad campaign. The advertisement was in poor taste on a number of levels, not least in the way they likened me to their chocolate bar. It is also a shame that it took so long for Cadbury to offer this apology... I hope they and other multinationals can learn from this; that offense may not be their intention, but when it is shown that it has caused offense a sincere apology straight away goes a long a way... Better still they should avoid causing offense in the first place which is best achieved by having greater diversity at board and senior management level."

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By Jen Chung in Food on June 4, 2011 10:57 AM

Comments [rss]

GrahamCracked

I, for one, won't buy any more Cadbury products, how dare they use such a washed up, irrelevant slag to sell their products. naomi, your 15 minutes are over, now please exit the public eye.

Rocknrope

Does anyone seriously believe she wrote that statement and used a word like "multinational"? Hell, does anyone think she'd use a word like "board"?

proudliberal1947

Must be a American, doesn't believe others have the capability using big words, if an American i can understand why they get confused reading the NY Times and that is written on a eight grade level. Oh!, and then never travel farther then 10 miles from home.

Rocknrope

I'd respond to you if I had any idea what the hell you were saying.

jacqueline66

I guess if you go looking for racial slurs you can find them everywhere even when they don't exist. I'm still not comprehending the problem here. I'm sure people have made racial slurs towards me and I never even noticed. I like it that way. The less drama the better. After a while it gets so that even slurs that are not racist have to be dealt with "just in case".

TheLexiphane

I know that many black residents of Washington, DC refer to the district as Chocolate City, and do so proudly and affectionately. I think what Campbell is REALLY pissed about is that someone used her name in a commercial and she didn't get paid.

Miles Bader

Well hey, chocolate's delicious... what's not to like?

Dan Smith

Hey Naomi...explain this.

Self-righteous bitch.

Colonel_Ingus

Nonono. You're getting this wrong. No chocolate purveyor may ever make reference to any black person, even indirectly. That would be racist. If McCormack wants to use a white person to promote their vanilla extracts there will be hell to pay. Should Spice Islands brand jasmine rice use anyone from the southern hemisphere in the print ads we shall be torching their huts.

You people that refuse to see this must be un-encumbered visually.

splicernyc

I you can't call black people "chocolate" then who can you say that about? Italians?

WetButt

She must have beat her maid furiously when she saw that ad

cr17

"Better still they should avoid causing offense in the first place which
is best achieved by having greater diversity at board and senior
management level."

Bitch please.

69GeorgeWBush69

Seriously though, think about how many eyes had to have seen this ad in some form and not one person thought, "Hey, this could be seen as racist!" Honestly, this ad looks like something that came from South America, where media is openly racist against blacks. Sounds like they definitely need to hire someone with a 2011 understanding of race dynamics, or basically anyone not living under a rock.

Miles Bader

Well to begin with, it isn't racist. It's making fun of Naomi because of how she (really!) acts, not because of her race. Everybody knows she's like that.

You could maybe fairly say that a big corporation shouldn't be running ads mocking an individual, no matter how she acts, but there's no justification for playing the "racist" card -- and indeed, I think it's Naomi who should be ashamed for doing so.

I agree, that maybe somebody in the advertising biz should be savvy enough to be aware that even if the ad isn't remotely racist, it will be _seen_ as such by the hyper-sensitive...and certainly Naomi qualifies as "hyper-sensitive"...

cr17

At what point do you think that the board and senior management saw this ad *before* it went to print?

My point is that Naomi Campbell, based upon the way she treats people, of which has a proven track record, has no right to be lecturing ANYONE on how they should be treating other people, nor delegating on how business should be conducted. Naomi Campell, along with the entire "look at me! look at me!" culture has done far more damage to society then they'll ever be able to help or repair.

So again, "bitch please" and allow me to add "diva please."