A holiday promotional video done right can be well-received by the public, especially if it’s inclusive. However, the ones done without careful consideration will definitely face a lot of backlash for the insensitivities.
BIG Pharmacy had a lot to answer for after a promotional of theirs went viral for being extremely racist towards Indians. Watch:
Dear Indian people.. Watch this and let me know how you feel.. Am I overreacting? They keep deleting my comments tho pic.twitter.com/rIBdMLUHLD
— 🏴Theguywiththestartattoo🏴 (@tgwtst) October 26, 2023
Yesterday (Thursday, 26th October) a supposed Deepavali promotional video was posted on social media that depicted influencer SongBill (喪Bill) playing the role of a BIG Pharmacy staff wearing “traditional Indian garments” while mimicking an Indian accent and making fun of the traditional Indian bindi or ‘pottu’ (a coloured dot worn on the centre of the forehead as a religious symbol by Hindus).
As seen in the video shared above, the content creator used the ‘pottu’ drawn on his forehead as an item barcode scanner. As one would expect, the post sparked outrage among Malaysians with many questioning how the idea for the skit even got approved to be produced in the first place. Many slammed BIG Pharmacy as well as the influencer for the racist content.
One netizen even pointed out that this wasn’t the first time SongBill was called out for insensitive content as he’s known to post many controversial videos in the past. After the overwhelming backlash, the video has since been removed from social media.
Earlier today, BIG Pharmacy released a statement to address the issue. The company said, “We would like to extend our sincerest apologies for the recent insensitive promotional video on social media. “We recognise the hurtful and offensive nature of this content and claim full responsibility for our lack of due diligence.” The healthcare retail brand then added that they will learn from this mistake to be better in the future.
As for SongBill, the Dissy member has yet to apologise for his involvement in the racist video but seeing how he has yet to take down his other videos that were deemed insensitive, it can be assumed that he won’t be answering for the recent one as well.
Read the full statement below:
