Krispy Kreme has issued an apology after a recent advertising campaign accidentally showed an offensive racial slur.
The popular doughnut brand brought out a number of adverts in Australia that were designed to celebrate people coming together. It wanted to mark milestones like birthdays, life moments and sports games.
In each advert, doughnuts representing the letter ‘O’ would appear on the screen. Words featured included “movie” and “footy”.
However in one advert, the word “congrats” featured. With one doughnut O replacing another, it briefly read “coongrats” on screen.
The word is considered to be a slur for a person of colour. Krispy Kreme’s marketing director Olivia Sutherland told Mumbrella: “We never intended to offend any person or group. We are sorry for the oversight and have removed all congratulations related ads from the campaign.”
According to the Mirror, Dr Stephen Hagan, a Queensland-based author and anti-racism campaigner, branded the Krispy Kreme gaffe “an absolute disgrace”. He said: “It’s an absolute disgrace that in 2023, someone thinks they can come up with an… ad like that on a product that is very popular with people of colour.
“The word has put my family and my people through so much trauma and it’s just disgraceful to see this happening.”
The advert featuring the word has since been pulled from YouTube.
