A new ad from tech player Panasonic has gone viral – and for all the wrong reasons – after it was called out for editing a white man’s head onto a Black man’s body.
US tech website The Verge spotted the Photoshopping blunder that has resulted in Panasonic pulling the offending campaign.
By all reports the stills ad was used in Panasonic’s social media for its new SoundSlayer wearable gaming speaker that appear to be a set of sound-enhancing microphones you drape over your shoulders while playing video games.
To promote the new SoundSlayer, someone in Panasonic’s marketing team has gone decidedly low budget and jumped onto image buying site Getty and typed in “gamer”.
The final, post-Photoshopped image shows a white guy wearing the SoundSlayer system while surrounded by a fire-breathing dragon and a marauding army of knights.
Here’s the final product.
And here’s the original image that shows a black man eating pizza and having a beer. It’s clearly evident it’s the same image by the posture, the T-shirt, the same arm definition and the same throat. Someone has taken the Black man’s body, stuck a white man’s head on top, lightened the skin, and changed the colour of his game controller and his shirt.
According to The Verge, Panasonic has since pulled all images relating to the campaign and is “still looking into the matter but didn’t offer a timetable for a response”.
That said, social media appears divided over Panasonic’s efforts. Some labelling it racist, others calling it “no big deal”, others said it happended all the time, while others wondered why its marketing team had been so cheap in the first place. Check out some of the reactions below:
