Oh, hell. If you want to see truly ignorant, misguided marketing, look no further than Ashton Kutcher, PopChips "President of Pop Culture," rocking the brownface as Raj, an Indian character looking for love in this crazy racist ad commercial for the snack brand. Seriously, you have to see this garbage:
Who the hell thought this was a good idea? According to the New York Times, the campaign was developed by Kutcher, PopChips and an advertising agency named Zambesi, and cost an estimated $1.5 million. Ridiculous.
So is that what it takes to sell a bag of chips these days? A racist caricature? Here's the shameless "no-offense-intended" non-apology from PopChips:
The new popchips worldwide dating video and ad campaign featuring four characters was created to provoke a few laughs and was never intended to stereotype or offend anyone. At popchips we embrace all types of shapes, flavors and colors, and appreciate all snackers, no matter their race or ethnicity. We hope people can enjoy this in the spirit it was intended.Ashton Kutcher might have a shitload of Twitter followers, but he does not know shit. More here: Das Racist Calls Out Ashton Kutcher For Going Brownface In New PopChip Commercial.
UPDATE: PopChips has yanked the main video featuring "Raj," but still has the initial video of Ashton Kutcher as all four characters (above) up and running on its YouTube channel.