"New Face of Ferrero" competition - only white children should apply?

[RedApple11]

Just bought a pack of Ferrero treats for my DD and was shocked at what looks like a blatantly discriminatory campaign. The new "Faces of Ferrero" (ie, the winning children whose images will be used to promote Ferrero products) are all white and fair featured. Five boys, one girls. Are only fair white children attractive enough to be the Face of Ferrero then?

I contacted Ferrero about this and was told:

"We would like to stress that the competition was judged purely on the basis of the children's responses to the question which was: "what they want to be when they grow up and why?".

So I investigated further and discovered that actually, what a crock that was. In fact, all entrants were required to upload their children's photos in order to have a valid entry and these images were then displayed in a gallery. See www.faceofkinder.com/terms.php and scroll down to section 9.3 which states:

"The photograph must have been taken within the last 6 months before it is sent as an entry in the competition. The child must be fully clothed. Whilst entrants may crop and enlarge photographs, they must not submit a photograph which has been substantially altered. By entering into the competition, the entrant agrees that the promoter can visit the child to check that the photograph is an accurate representation of him or her. No changes will be permitted to photographs accepted into the Gallery after the voting period opens on 30th May."

Anyway, the wonderfully white and photogenic winners can all be found here: www.faceofkinder.com/gallery.php

Don't get me wrong, these kids are all gorgeous and this isn't sour grapes - I had no idea about this competition and wouldn't have entered my DD into it anyway.

That said, I think it's outragous that in this day and age, a company like Ferrero can get away with promoting the idea that only fair white children are attractive enough to be the Face of Ferrero. This seems wrong on so many levels.

Off with your head

mayisout

"The odds of a non-white person in the UK being chosen who is not asian or black is miniscule - despite this miniscule possibility there is one or more non-white kids in the six (in the view of other previous posters) so despite the stats of 56.8% or whatever it was stated by the 'expert' above her stats have been proven not to be correct in this case BECAUSE of the inclusion of the non-white kid/s."

Listen, lady. It is evident to me that you know sweet cunting all about statistics and understand even less. Yes, I am an expert. And I will explain to you in words a 5-year old can read: if you do something once, you can't assume the result will be repeated every time.

Your wildly woeful lack of understanding is a bit like saying:

"Holy shit! The coin landed on tails. And there's only a 50-50 chance of tails. Well bugger me, that shouldn't have happened. There must be some kind of conspiracy. There must be someone influencing the result. Hey, I reckon there's some kind of tails-ism going on."

FWIW I have reported your post to mumsnet as I find your grasp of mathematics offensive.

Thank you avocado :)

Well done for actually understanding more than one word of that, English clearly not mays strong point either :)

I love the conspiracy theory people, there's a bloody drama in everything these days.

Listen, lady. It is evident to me that you know sweet cunting all about statistics and understand even less

If ever there was an award for THE perfect line from a post then this must surely be it!

Tails-ism! :o

"Listen, lady. It is evident to me that you know sweet cunting all about statistics and understand even less"

Ahahahaha, quote of the week, Ive just sprayed my laptop with Taboo (and at admitting I drink Taboo)

You drink Taboo?

I do hope you are aware that you admitted that in the face of rampant Taboo-ism?

Taboo?
That still exists?!?

Oooh, I'd love some Taboo.

My pinto seems boring now.

Piss off, what do you want, a token black child who wasn't the best candidate but was included only to fulfil "racial diversity"? People like you annoy me.

From MNHQ:

"Hi TheAvocadoOfWisdom,

Thanks for reporting Mayisout's post to us. Unfortunately, not having a "grasp of mathematics" doesn't actually break our Talk Guidelines ;)

However, please do continue to report posts that you find offensive"

:o

What about lack of common sense?
Or inability to write posts I can understand?

Does that break talk guidelines?

Unfortunately, not having a "grasp of mathematics" doesn't actually break our Talk Guidelines

Well thank fook otherwise I would have been banned ages ago,

Does anybody remember Ritter Sport chocolate? Was the height of aspirational luxe when I was a nipper.

I had a dark choc and peppermint one tonight (grudge paying a fiver for Bendicks mints) and it was magic. One pound v well spent.

Rocher.... pah...

avocado I think I might love you a little bit!

Right I've just come back from dd's disco to discover I have a new MN crush. Avocado you beauty!

Did you get your groove on thatisall? :o

purple I'm way too old apparently (I'm 28 and she's a proper little madam!lol)

Ok.
Some children at my dds dance school were put forward for an audition to be in a musical.
My dd wasn't, the reason was because the director specifically asked for children with dark hair.
My dd is fair.
She asked me why she couldn't wear a wig.
The reason became apparent when 3 of her friends landed a part in the production. They were all no-white.
Basically the role was for non white children.
I and dd have no problem with that at all, well done to her friends I say.

Now should I go ranting and raving that my dd should be in the show, even though she would clearly look out of place in the role???

Get a grip.
Ps Kinder chocolate is not nice, Cadburys is better.

I work in marketing and set up stuff like this. If what Ferrero claim was true, that this was a caption only competition, then the entry form would have simply asked for entrants' details and then something like "And in no more than 20 words, tell us what your child wants to be and why...." FULL STOP

If we ask you for a photo upload, which is a truckload more effort to administer, then it's because the photo forms part of the entry criteria. End of.

So what's the issue? It's simple. Ferrero lied. If they wanted pretty white boys for their ad campaigns, that's fine. Go to a modelling agency and pick out the lads you want for your campaigns. Don't look for the new face of under the guise of a caption competition as this is shite and unethical and gives the impression anyone could win. It is not an accident that no fat kids won and that the five boys who won are similar to the exisiting Ferrero models.

Why run a competition then? By running it as a 'competition', Ferrero generated more publicity (on facebook, on competition boards etc) and also found themselves some new models and all for much less than the cost of running an ad campaign and going to a model agency and paying for new boys. Simple.

Who cares? It's up to you if you think this is fair. My thoughts are that, if you're looking for a specific 'face', then say that in the outset. Don't trick people or pretend it's anything other than what it is.

But sockpuppet twotoes could it not be that they wanted the pics so they could use the natural shots to show the winners, like they have done?

I really really do not see anything untoward here and you are another one who is taking the piss out of and diluting actual racism

You and yourself OP should join David Icke to conjure up some crazy conspiracies together.

Hi HairyLemon

When we run comps like this for companies, if we want to display the winners' pics, we email the winners' parents and ask them for a pic.

Trust me when I say it's a f*ckload more work to administer 5000 JPGs if they don't form part of the comp criteria.

There is no conspiricy - these are facts. Have a nice weekend. :)

Maybe they use a better marketing company than yours with more efficient ways of administering the pics. Doesnt take much effort to bulk upload 5000 pics onto a website for the PUBLIC to vote on.

"There is no conspiracy" - my thoughts exactly

I cannot believe people are still debating this.

HairyLemon, perhaps if I explain how it works you might not make such ignorant comments (or more likely, you will continue as you seem quite rude).

When you have a photo upload or video upload element to a competition, you need a dedicated administrator(s) who sanity check every photo/video (to ensure the pics are what they're supposed to be before they're published on your webpages). In the case of a gallery display site, the administrator(s) have to crop/resize the images to ensure that each pic is the right size. That's why the 6 winners' pics are exactly the same width x height.

You don't do this for 5000 pics in a competition if:

"...the competition was judged purely on the basis of the children's responses to the question which was: "what they want to be when they grow up and why?".

As I said before, I don't have any issue with photo comps. The issue here is the false premise that this was a caption only comp.