Chinese laundry detergent ad incites fury online for being blatantly racist

Just what were the ad execs for Chinese laundry detergent company Qiaobi thinking when they came up with their most recent commercial which is now airing on Chinese TV and cinemas?

The 50-second spot promoting the company's laundry detergent features a Chinese woman doing her laundry when she's interrupted by a black man covered in paint splatter.

The man flirts with her from the doorway until she signals for him to join her in the laundry room. The moment he reaches her, she shoves detergent in his mouth and pushes him into the machine.

Screams can be heard from the machine as the laundry is being done and when the woman opens up the cover after the load is done, a Chinese man emerges and she smiles happily.

The commercial ends with Qiaobi's tagline in Chinese which translates to: "Change begins with Qiaobi."

Needless to say, since the commercial made it onto airwaves, netizens have been outraged by its blatantly racist message.

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This is not the first time that the Chinese media has been accused of racism. In December last year, Disney China copped a lot of heat for altering the Star Wars: The Force Awakens publicity posters in China where Luipita Nyog'o's Maz Kanata was removed and John Boyega's Finn notably shrank down.

According to news.com.au, Qiaobi's ad is a remake of an Italian commercial created for Coloreria laundry detergent a decade ago. However, the Italian version had the message "coloured is better" behind it.

For the Coloreria ad, a woman is shown putting a white Italian man in the washing machine and happy to see a black man come out of it after the washing was done.

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