Burberry has been slammed for its recent Chinese New Year advert.
As reported by Jing Daily, British fashion house Burberry has been criticized by Chinese netizens for their Chinese New Year advert.
Posted on its official WeChat account, Burberry released a Chinese Lunar New Year campaign titled “Burberry Modern New Year (摩登新禧).” The post showed images of eight solemn models sporting Burberry outfits and posing in a family portrait, supposedly representing togetherness.
Directed by American photographer Ethan James Green (who previously collaborated with Alexander McQueen, Calvin Klein, and Marc Jacobs), the campaign starred actress Vicky Zhao and Zhou Dongyu .
In under 24 hours, the post was viewed over 40,000 times.
“Obviously, this is not about Chinese New Year,” commented one Weibo user.
“This is a group of people who plan to kill this ultra-rich grandma and keenly fight over her inheritance,” wrote a user named ‘miaomeili’.
“Do they have some misunderstanding of celebrating the new year gathering and happiness?” asked another.
Children who were shown the campaign on the streets of China were also quick to criticize the campaign. “It’s so terrible,” one girl said. “Like the devil’s castle.”
“It doesn’t feel like a real family,” said one young boy.
“It’s their opinion of China but not the real China,” one lady said.
Burberry has since pulled the advert.
In November, Dolce & Gabbana came under fire for a racist Chinese ‘chopsticks’ advert.
