100 signatures reached
To: Carl McCann, Executive Director - Board of Directors
Suspend Dole's Tasteless Commercial - AN UPDATE
UPDATE: https://twitter.com/DoleSunshine/status/1484012068839649282
Dole Sunshine responded to a tweet containing this petition, and has pledged to take the commercial OFF THE AIR! This is great news. Thank you to everyone who signed, shared, and took action where you saw a wrong. BRAVO!!
Mr. McCann and the Dole Company Board of Directors,
Please take action to suspend your recent advertisement "Hold My Fruit Bowl," a commercial featuring a young girl and her father skipping rocks. The opening of the commercial appears to be a nod at empowerment of girls and implies that the strength she has is related to consuming a Dole Sunshine fruit bowl. At the conclusion of the commercial, the young girl's rock strikes a person dressed in furry clothing and boots fishing off an icy coastline, knocking the person over. The person's face is not visible, but the stereotypical image suggests that this is a person of native Arctic heritage, engaging in subsistence fishing. This is where the commercial takes a shocking, weirdly problematic, and implicitly racist spin.
It is further shocking that no one on the marketing or promotional management team found any problem with this advertisement. As a company associated with the sale of tropical fruit, why not have the rock strike a palm tree or banana tree along a tropical beach, or another inanimate object? How did a rock striking a person pass the entire team as perfectly acceptable? Given Dole's troublesome past with colonization issues, this is an incredibly poor decision.
Please suspend this advertisement immediately. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Dole Sunshine responded to a tweet containing this petition, and has pledged to take the commercial OFF THE AIR! This is great news. Thank you to everyone who signed, shared, and took action where you saw a wrong. BRAVO!!
Mr. McCann and the Dole Company Board of Directors,
Please take action to suspend your recent advertisement "Hold My Fruit Bowl," a commercial featuring a young girl and her father skipping rocks. The opening of the commercial appears to be a nod at empowerment of girls and implies that the strength she has is related to consuming a Dole Sunshine fruit bowl. At the conclusion of the commercial, the young girl's rock strikes a person dressed in furry clothing and boots fishing off an icy coastline, knocking the person over. The person's face is not visible, but the stereotypical image suggests that this is a person of native Arctic heritage, engaging in subsistence fishing. This is where the commercial takes a shocking, weirdly problematic, and implicitly racist spin.
It is further shocking that no one on the marketing or promotional management team found any problem with this advertisement. As a company associated with the sale of tropical fruit, why not have the rock strike a palm tree or banana tree along a tropical beach, or another inanimate object? How did a rock striking a person pass the entire team as perfectly acceptable? Given Dole's troublesome past with colonization issues, this is an incredibly poor decision.
Please suspend this advertisement immediately. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Why is this important?
Let's urge Dole Sunshine to take corrective action! Their recent commercial, "Hold My Fruit Bowl" ends with a troubling image of a rock striking a person fishing off an icy coastline: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzhyWHRdP48 The stereotypical implication is deeply problematic and easily interpreted as racist. Dole Sunshine needs to rethink this advertisement, and pull it immediately.
How it will be delivered
This petition will be emailed to the operating secretary of the Board of Directors.