This year for the holiday season, the internationally acclaimed Italian company Motta created an ad for its classic Panettone.
However, instead of focussing on family, love and celebration, they decided to make an ad with the objective of highlighting the traditional recipe for panettone... by insulting and denigrating vegans, vegetarians, those that for health reasons cannot have dairy products and those who follow beliefs that ask for respect of the animal kingdom.
“We could have used minced tofu, papaya, seitan or dried seaweed….but we didn't!” laughs the narrator as he lists the most popular alternatives for animal products. Was making fun of a community that values cruelty-free options necessary? We think not.
That's why we are demanding that this ad be replaced with a more family-oriented and inclusive one and public apologies made! Shame on Motta for having sullied the holiday season with uncalled-for bullying!
The holiday season should be all about classic values such as family, love and celebration - certainly not a platform to make fun of those that, by choice or for health reasons, can't eat animal products.
Your ad isn't only offensive towards a large part of the community, but also uselessly bullying.
This is why we ask that the ad be substituted with a less aggressive one that is more in sync with the holiday sentiment and that next time a more loving approach be used when creating marketing products.
