H&M's sweatshirt ad controversy

Recently, the clothing brand H&M have come under serious scrutiny for releasing an ad that shows a black child adverting a green sweatshirt that says "Coolest Monkey in the Jungle." Once the ad reached the attention of the public, H&M was quickly criticized for promoting a racist ideology of comparing black people to monkeys. The incident has caused H&M to lose a lot of their collaborators and celebrity endorsers. Since the negative outcry from the public was strong, H&M have removed the ad and they have said to have hired a diversity leader to prevent this type of incident happening again. The parents of the child who was modeling in the sweatshirt stated that they did not think the ad was racist, but others within the public are not convinced. Many other articles have come out against H&M since this controversy, highlighting some other instances where the company has been perceived as insensitive to certain cultures. This example shows the importance of knowing the people one is trying to sell to along with the current social climate that those desired targets are living in. One could argue that because of the racial tensions that have been escalated within America, people responded more negatively to this ad then they would have if it was released five years ago. Being able to know the values of  a society and how a consumer perceives an ad is extremely important because their reaction to the ad can be inflated by the events that are happening around them.