"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.

So, you wouldn't have run the (quite possibly very effective) competition for non-models to get on their (possibly) [

advertising would take a huge step back if we were to only have white children and adults to advertise products as we do not live in an all white society yes at times people may be picked because they are not white, like at times someone may be picked becasue they are white

anyway i am saying the same thing again and again and being asked the same thing again and again i sound like a broken record

It is not ok to pick people because they are white or not white except in very specific occasions (such as playing a character role that is known to look a certain way).

It is ok for white people to be picked, and it is ok for non-white people to be picked, but not because of their colour.

Doing so is discrimination.

This is like someone picking the England football team based on skin colour, in the name of equality!

Some kids won a competition. I bet they were all absolutely delighted. And some people on the internet are claiming they shouldn't have because they were white. Never mind that non-white children have won in previous years, according to other posters. (I myself found an article which said a little girl with Down's Syndrome won in 2009. However, she was fair and white, so presumably her selection sent out a negative message, eh?

There might be children who think that the competition was white-only. I'm a damn sight sure that there's more children who think that "ordinary children like me aren't good enough to be on adverts".

That is some wild and random extrapolation you've done there OP. YABVU.

FFS is this STILL going on??? It was a competition. 6 white children won it. get over it.

Are we done now? awesome. Ferrero Rocher anyone?

For the last time,picking someone because of their skin colour in an attempt of diversity is racist.
No matter how you dress it up. These children were the best had the biggest families to vote for them in the bunch.

Newsflash....the world has moved on.

When I was at primary school in the 70's I was always resigned to being the wicked queen instead of Snow White because of my colour. Even at a young age, I was aware of the selection process for school plays, despite being the most capable at reading and acting.

But 30+ years later...disney have Black, Asian and South American princesses and people are much more aware of being inclusive of colour.

It is definitely NOT perfect and there are some serious issues than need to be addressed but.....OP.....you are a loon!

I hate this sort of thing.
We all know racism exists. This isn't racism.
YABU.

Why all the harping on about the photos? These are normal, cute children, but not models. I get that you think there's a Big Conspiracy here to promote whiteness, but I think you're seeing what you want to see. You're ignoring all the comments re: percentage of white people in the population, and comments which have pointed out that there was a web vote to narrow the competition down to the final 50, etc. No, it's just great corporate white people.

5 of the 6 children are boys and I'm not thinking oh god, only boys are worthy in today's society. And by the way, my child is of Armenian and German descent! Why are there no Armenian/ German children represented! Why does society hate him!!

They asked for photos because they eventually were going to publish photos of the winners. This happens in most contests involving children; people like seeing photos of children on childrens products. Just giving a list of names of winners is very dull. Cute kid with cute freckles? Or bow in hair? good.

I suspect you aren't really reading responses other than to knee-jerk/ refresh that chip on your shoulder. I was the only white child in my neighbourhood in the city I grew up in in the US, which was 80% black overall at the time. Almost all of the children winning starring roles in plays/ showing up in the local newspaper were black. Was this discrimination against me and the few other white students? Or was it just, oh dear, an accurate representation of the city we lived in?

Speaking of advertising: the only professional models I see on that contest pages are non-white. I'm sure someone else has pointed this out, but it's been deftly ignored.

Every bit of common sense on this thread has been deftly ignored so far.
Sadly people can always find conspiracy and racism where it really doesn't exist, IMO it makes a mockery of the whole situation, if people start screaming g racism when it truly is not the case makes people take ACTUAL racism less seriously, it becomes a case of "playing the race card" every time.

Even in this day and age people GENUINLEY suffer from racist discrimination and threads like this and attitudes like the OP and some others makes people unsympathetic to actual discrimination as there is always someone shouting racism, it's disgraceful.

Fight the real issues op not one you have made up in your own head to get people talking.

YABU, it isn't racism you are just creating a problem where none exists. If you are worried about racism why not fight for somthing that truly is important rather than worrying about somehting this irrelevant!