By IANS
New York : Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor company, was forced to apologise after a print ad circulated by the company around blog-land invited wrath from around the world over its racist connotation.
The ad shows six black sprinters crouched in the start position in front of a white man wearing a shirt and chinos (khaki pants) in an office.
In a statement on its website Friday, Intel said: “We made a bad mistake. I know why and how, but that simply doesn’t make it better.”
It was intended that the advertisement “convey the performance capabilities of our processors through a number of visual metaphors”, Don MacDonald, director of global marketing for the company, wrote.
“Unfortunately, this ad using African-American sprinters did not deliver our intended message, and in fact proved to be culturally insensitive and insulting.”
Gizmodo, a technology blog, was quick to spot the connotation of a white master surveying a group of black workers apparently bowed at his feet. “One of Intel’s latest ad’s shows six athletic black dudes bowing down before a dorky white guy in khaki pants. Lousy, barely subliminal racist advertising or just plain lousy advertising? You be the judge,” says the website.
Also, the Register, a technology news site, said in its analysis: “While the white man’s smug jubilation is apparently derived from choosing the Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, there are some pretty sinister undertones in the advertisement.”
On the back foot, Intel said it had pulled the ad from hundreds of publications, but was unable to stop two which had already shipped.
The California-based company said it had identified “specific steps” in its ad review process, and would rely on these as well as “just more common sense” to guard against a similar incident in the future.