German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen has had to apologise after a new advertising campaign to promote a black Supermini model told drivers to ‘black up!’.
To publicise upcoming special editions of the car, to be available in both black and white, Volkswagen went ahead with ‘white up!’ and ‘black up!’ license plates on promotional materials.
However, UK bosses got cold feet over the plans and rejected the use of ‘black up!’ (‘white up!’ got through unscathed), as they were conscious that the term could be associated with minstrel acts or Robbie Fowler’s Twitter page.
“In this country at the moment we seem to be dealing with an explosion in racism and these are not the wisest of words to have been chosen,” Matthew Collins of Hope Not Hate told the Daily Mail.
Keen to avoid the bad press, Volkswagen have since stated: “We recognised the potential sensitivity and reversed the wording.”
Yes, you read that correctly – they simply reversed the wording and decided to go ahead with ‘up! black!’ instead, which makes no sense whatsoever but will likely offend a lot less people.
