Endangered Pandas: Salesgenie To Stop Running Super Bowl Spot

InfoUSA Chair & CEO Vinod Gupta, whose company is the parent of Salesgenie.com, said that its Super Bowl ad "featuring two animated pandas speaking with what were intended as Chinese accents would be withdrawn," according to Stuart Elliott of the N.Y. TIMES. The ad "drew complaints from viewers because of the characters' ethnic accents." Gupta apologized for the ad and said, "We never thought anyone would be offended." He added that the company planned to keep running the other Super Bowl ad in which an "animated salesman named Ramesh ... speaks with an Indian or South Asian accent." Gupta: "More people seem upset about the pandas than Ramesh." Elliott notes the "debate over this year's commercials and the decision to withdraw the pandas spot are indicative of increasing customer sensitivity to marketing messages, particularly when ethnic images are involved." Salesgenie's decision marks the second consecutive year in which "criticism will have caused the withdrawal of Super Bowl commercials." Masterfoods last year stopped running a spot for its Snickers brand "after some viewers complained the spot and related material on a Web site were homophobic." GM also pulled a spot viewers claimed "glorified suicide," though a re-edited version was later released (N.Y. TIMES, 2/6).