Monkey's Make the Best Tobacco

according to this complain reported on the BBC anyway.

Now I get wanting to market African tobacco as a cut above what they currently sell now. I am not a smoker but I understand Korean cigarettes are to real cigarettes what Korean beer is to real beer. However, the ad campaign has monkeys dressed as reporters, planters and workers in Africa.

Here is what the company in Korea KT&G had to say:

"We absolutely had no intention to offend anyone and only chose monkeys because they are delightful animals that remind people of Africa. Since this product contains leaves produced by the traditional African style, we only tried to adopt images that symbolise the nature of Africa."

However, she said the cigarette packet images would remain, as the company does not consider them to be offensive.

Amazing..... *slow clap* 

The company does not consider them offensive, I wonder what the people who actually filed the complaint think?

Yes, monkeys do live in Africa. They also live in virtually every country that is in a tropical zone or that has a tropical season. What about an animal that only lives on the continent of Africa? I think there are a few.

Also, I rarely think of monkeys doing journalism, though it would explain Fox News, or doing agricultural labour or smoking a pipe.

But to be fair, it wouldn't surprise me if no one at this company thought about the racist nature of this campaign. I have said often that the older generation in Korea (over 40) is responsible for changing Korea from Cambodia to California by generating a true economic miracle while fighting to allow freedom of expression almost unheard of in most of Asia. However, they left the social revolution (racism, women's rights) to their children. While I am happy to say I do see evidence of that social awareness in young Koreans, especially those under 25 but also in my generation, there is still a ways to go.