Mumbai: Indian advertising has evolved immensely with some highlighting the changes that the country’s society has undergone. From highlighting social stereotypes to promoting our ancient values and traditions, some campaigns/ advertisements have done more than just sell products. However on Wednesday Kent RO Systems received tremendous backlash for their recent campaign, where netizens claimed the advertisement to be ‘classist’ and ‘misogynist.’ The advertisement wasn’t appreciated by the consumers and had left everyone fuming due to which Mahesh Gupta, the CMD of Kent RO Systems issued an official apology, for ‘hurting sentiments’.
Please accept our sincere apologies for having published the Ad of Kent Atta & Bread Maker. It was unintentional but wrongly communicated and it has been withdrawn. We support and respect all sections of the society.
Mahesh Gupta, Chairman
— Kent RO (@KentROSystems) May 27, 2020
Kent, popularly known for its RO systems, had come up with an advertisement for atta and bread maker. To promote their new product, an Instagram post which had phrases like “are you allowing your maid to knead atta dough by hand?” and “her hands may be infected”, written on it.
The post and the lines that Kent used to promote their product really didn’t go well with many on Twitter who accused the brand of being ‘classist’, the brand had to face a lot of hate and should really not pass any sorts of comments towards the domestic help.
The framing by Kent is most disappointing, on multiple levels 🙁 Can't the house help wash her hands? Very badly articulated reason-to-buy. pic.twitter.com/WDCeC94i0h
— Karthik 🇮🇳 (@beastoftraal) May 26, 2020
Look at this classist #Kent Atta Maker Ad@dreamgirlhema ji – This is in 'poorer' taste than the 'poor maid' who you are snubbing pic.twitter.com/pwRtV43mUC
— Arnaz Hathiram (@ArnazHathiram) May 26, 2020
Can you believe this ? I hope they get called out real bad – Kent go purify yourself !!!!! Shame !!! pic.twitter.com/e1lnSrCuLr
— Viji Venkatesh 🇮🇳 وجی وینکٹیش (@vijivenkatesh) May 26, 2020
Its pure shame on part of #Kent
The ad dethrones your purifying capacity……. cleanse yourself…
Withdraw such advertisements..
Shame on #Kent pic.twitter.com/zME6eAGPjx— anil pillai (@anilglina) May 27, 2020
In a press release by Kent, the statement read:
“Our recent advertisement of Kent Atta & Bread Maker on social media was unintentional, badly communicated, and was wrong. And therefore, it was immediately withdrawn. We are extremely sorry for this incident and want to apologize to everyone, especially to the people whose sentiments were hurt.
The advertisement is contrary to the beliefs and professional standards of Kent. We will investigate how our advertisement standards were compromised and we will further take corrective and preventive action so that such incidents are not repeated in the future.
We once again reiterate that we support and respect all sections of the society and apologize for the mistake.”
While some netizens made it a point and were determined to not buy products from Kent, thereby calling for a complete ban on all goods manufactured by the company because of their advertising which wasn’t needed.
