We may have started a new year, but it appears we are still years away from companies making insensitive clothing and advertising decisions. We’ve had body-shaming ads and slogans relating to racist rhymes and now H&M have joined the list of companies who should’ve offence-tested their products.
The company has apologised after a photo of a black child wearing a hoodie reading “coolest monkey in the jungle” was used to advertise the hoodie on its website. It has now been removed.
The image was screenshotted by someone and did the rounds on Twitter with many people complaining about how offensive it was.
Another tweeter compared the image to another catalogue shot of a while child wearing a hoodie that read “Jungle survival expert”.
Some blamed lack of cultural awareness and some defended H&M saying the advert was an innocent mistake.
H&M responded with a spokesperson who stated, “This image has now been removed from all H&M channels and we apologise to anyone this may have offended.”