H&M released a marketing campaign for children's hoodies featuring a black child modeling a green hoodie labeled "coolest monkey in the jungle." This prompted backlash as referring to people of color as monkeys has a history as a racial slur. While the phrase is commonly used in Europe to refer to children, H&M did not consider how it could be viewed as insensitive in other countries. As a result, they faced boycotts that decreased sales and required discounting products. This highlights the need for companies to have diverse marketing teams that can research different cultural contexts.

2. Coolest money
in the Jungle
H&M released a campaign
for their new kids' hoodies.
One of the posts was of a
green hoodie labeled
“Coolest monkey in the
jungle” and they had a
young black male modeling
the hoodie.

3. They received immediate backlash
for the insensitive campaign
because of the history behind
people of color being referenced to
monkeys as a racial slur.
H&M is a European company, so
they didn’t correlate the saying with
a racial slur since it’s a term they
usually use to refer to children.
After some time the mother of the
child released a statement saying
that she never found the hoodie to
be offensive.

4. • I selected this company
because this campaign went
viral for the wrong reason
and because the marketing
team didn’t consider how
the campaign would be
viewed in other countries.
• Celebrities quickly
responded to the issue like
Lebron James

5. At the time H&M
saw a decrees in
sales since people
were calling for a
boycott.
They had to resort to
discounting their
products, but they
still could not reach
their target sales

6. This needs to be a big lesson for H&M and
other companies that they need a diverse
marketing team who can do intensive
research of each culture of the countries they
are marketing to.