Model calls advertisment "insulting and hurtful" as consumer boycott is threatened

Independent
By Susie Mesure

Cadbury is facing the prospect of a black consumer boycott after it compared Naomi Campbell to a chocolate bar in a new advertising campaign.

The supermodel – hardly known for taking things in her stride – is incensed that Cadbury used her name in the strap line to promote its new chocolate bar called Bliss, accusing the company of racism. The ad says: "Move over Naomi – there is a new diva in town."

Yesterday Campbell revealed she is considering "every option available" after Cadbury, owned by the US giant Kraft, refused to pull the ad campaign, which ran in newspapers last week: "I am shocked. It is upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me, but for all black women and black people. I do not find any humour in this. It is insulting and hurtful."

The models mother, Valerie Morris, backed her daughter, saying: "I am deeply upset by this racist advert. Do these people think they can insult black people and we just take it? This is the 21st century, not the 1950s. Shame on Cadbury."

Disgust at the ad prompted members of the public to complain to the campaign group Operation Black Vote (OBV), which has called for Cadbury to apologise. OBVs Simon Woolley said that without an apology, the "only recourse black people have is not to buy its chocolate". He has written to the American civil rights activists Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to ask them to mobilise the countrys Afro-American population. "I want them to know what their parent company is doing in Europe. I have asked them to support us."