TIMES OF INDIA (India), DIE WELT (Germany), NY TIMES (US), REUTERS (UK), POLSKIE RADIO (Poland)
From using Norwegian mass murderers to sell clothes to an unnerving number of examples of Nazi references at Indian stores, shock tactics in marketing seem to be reaching a new low. Here are the worst five recent examples:
1. So business names have to stick in the minds of consumers, right? Puneet Sabhlok in Mumbai went with something everyone could remember: Hitler’s Cross. “Hitler is a catchy name. Everyone knows Hitler,” Sabhlok told the New York Times.
2. Apparently, not everyone knows Hitler. Rajesh Shah has been refusing to change the name of his store all week by pleading ignorance: “I had only heard that Hitler was a strict man. It was only recently that we read about Hitler on the Internet,” reports the Times of India.
3. Die Welt reported earlier in the year that a new store had sprung up in the German town of Chemnitz. The only problem was that its name bore a worrying resemblance to that of Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in July 2011.
4. Back in 2007, shoppers in in an Indian mall were given promotional material adorned with swastikas, urging them to buy new bed linen. Considering the swastika has long been used in Indian religions such as Hinduism, it would not have posed a problem if it wasn’t coupled with “Bed and Beyond Presents the NAZI Collection.” The furnishings dealer insisted it was merely an abbreviation for New Arrival Zone of India, reports Reuters.
5. The Estonian GasTerm Eesti company was forced to apologize August 27, after it used a photograph of the infamous gate in Auschwitz – “Arbeit Macht Frei” – to promote the company’s use of non-toxic gas, reports Polskie Radio.
