5 Racist Southeast Asian Commercials That Faced Heavy Criticism

I am sure you all must have seen the racist Chinese detergent ad wherein a Chinese lady shoves a black guy into a washing machine only for the black lad to turn into a perfectly fair-skinned Chinese fellow. But if you think that’s only a one-off instance of racism creeping into the Southeast Asian marketing landscape, you need to think again. While we wholeheartedly accept their marketing brilliance, there’s also no dearth of racist Southeast Asian commercials and we keep coming across such adverts every now and then.

So, today we are here with 5 incredibly racist Southeast Asian adverts that will make you wonder if these brands had their marketing campaigns being run by absolute fools. Let’s take a look at these.

1. Big Pharmacy: Racist Indian Pharmacy Ad

One of the biggest pharmaceutical companies, Big Pharmacy, landed in hot waters last year after it released an advert featuring an influencer, who many thought was shown mocking Indians.

The video shows the influencer working as a pharmacy staff in an “Indian” outfit and scanning items at the counter with a ‘bindi” drawn on his forehead with a marker. The rather absurd and stereotypical representation of Indians drew much flak from social media users and Big Pharmacy had to take down the video and apologize for the offensive nature of the video and its lack of due diligence.

I’d love to know what became of their marketing team after this episode!

2. Tutoroo: Getting A Chinese Girl’s Phone Number

If launching racist ad campaigns is an art, then Tutoroo is the Picasso of it. The online marketplace for native language tutors came under heavy fire from all quarters in February 2020 after it released an advert that showcased a Chinese woman as, let’s say, a prostitute! Or at least it did for a few seconds!

The ad showcases a white young man, seemingly British, walking up to a Chinese girl and asking for her phone number. What comes out of her mouth next upsets not only the Chinese but everyone regardless of their race. I mean “sex sex sex free sex tonight!” doesn’t exactly sound too decent. We later see the British lad teaching her how to say her phone number correctly i.e., “six six six three six two nine”!

But despite causing a major furor on social media through its poor portrayal of the Chinese, Tutoroo refused to bog down and take down the video. The company instead asked the audience to embrace themselves for more videos and skip those if they weren’t suited to their tastes.

That’s some chutzpah, Tutoroo!

3. Watson’s Malaysia: Blackfaced Woman

Painting a person’s face black to show them as an ugly-looking fellow isn’t new in the Southeast Asian marketing world. But such actions can result in a huge public outcry and Watson’s Malaysia learned that the hard way.

Watson’s Malaysia 2017 “Legenda Cun Raya” campaign came under heavy criticism for portraying a “blackface” lady as unattractive. The ad tells the story of a rich merchant Al-Kazam who hears a beautiful voice singing and notices a mysterious lady passing by. When he asks her to reveal her face, which is covered with a long head scarf, the girl dutifully complies. However, the merchant is in for a shock when he sees her dark face, which is obviously painted with black makeup.

The ad received such backlash from the audience that not only did Watson’s Malaysia have to take down the video but also issue a public apology for this abomination of an advert.

4. E-Pay: Brown Face

Here’s another example of painting a person’s face black or brown to propagate stereotypes within Southeast Asian society.

In 2019, Singapore's E-Pay campaign sparked outrage for its use of "brownface." The ad, promoting a government initiative for electronic payments, featured actor Dennis Chew in darkened makeup to portray characters of various ethnicities. Two characters, particularly criticized, depicted a Malay woman wearing a headscarf and an Indian man who Chew depicted by applying brown makeup on his face. Following widespread criticism, the ad was removed.

I often wonder what their marketing teams must have been smoking to come up with ad campaigns like these!

5. Cadbury Malaysia: Salute the Goodness

And here’s the last one on this list. But unlike the other adverts covered in this blog, this ad didn’t come under criticism for any racist content. Instead, the ad was slammed for not promoting racial diversity.

The ad, which was posted on Instagram, came under attack particularly by those from the Malaysian Indian community for not promoting racial diversity. Thankfully, Cadbury Malaysia realized its mistake and issued a clarification saying that the original advertisement had all the races featured in it.

Wrapping Up

And that was a wrap of some of the most racist Southeast Asian commercials from recent times. While most brands would take the first opportunity and apologize to their audience for any intentional or unintentional racially discriminatory content, others like Tutoroo seem to have developed a thick skin. What about you? Would you care to apologize if your marketing team goofed things up like this? I guess, we’ll find that out at some point!

We’ll be back with more awesome videos for you. Till then, stay tuned!