In the last week there’s been a spate of half-arsed attempts at marketing by leading companies which, at their worse, are racist. Of course they all deny trying to offend but I really have to wonder not only what went through their mind when they came up with their ideas but why nobody, at any stage, stopped them.

Here are 2, all from the last few days, in order of stupidity…

Nivea – White is Purity

Nivea sorry for 'white is purity' Facebook ad https://t.co/9WGj82iqGD by @OmarOakes pic.twitter.com/YkfmTKIGIP

— Campaign: Brands (@CampaignBrands) April 5, 2017

In the case of this one, I tweeted something about this and Nivea responded…

The NIVEA Middle East post was not meant to be offensive. We apologize. It’s been removed. NIVEA values diversity and tolerance.

Which was really my point – I know they didn’t mean to be offensive but how the hell did this get released without anybody releasing it blatantly was?

Kendall Jenner & Pepsi – “Live for Now”

A privileged, white supermodel acts as a peacemaker between civil rights activists and police, simply by sharing a can of Pepsi. Where’s the harm in that? 🙄 Of course, the ad’s based on recent protests over police brutality against black people in America.

Pepsi has pulled that Kendall Jenner ad and apologized: "Clearly we missed the mark." https://t.co/ypV72nErnW pic.twitter.com/yG2W8nuGGK

— Variety (@Variety) April 6, 2017

And let’s not forget this beauty from Sony a few years ago…

#RacistOrNah Playstation Portable "White is Coming" (as a WW holds a smaller BW by her face) pic.twitter.com/ac8zVaXSDG

— Parang My Belle (@VidaSterLinG) September 1, 2014

Maybe the issue can be best demonstrated by the image at the very top of this post. I did a search for a stock photo of ‘Marketing Executives’ and this image came up a lot – a group of attractive white, western people. The image, it should be noted, has been used by a number of companies for the purposes of recruitment. Of course, this isn’t the only photo but a number of others have a similar set of all white/western faces. The exception are those with a single black person in the mix. You know, the token minority. But is this photo representative of those people in marketing or just representative of our views of what they should look like?

Either way, there are some people out there who really need to join the 21st century. Damn it, they need to join humanity.