• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, March 26, 2018

Chance The Rapper waded into the marketing culture wars this weekend. 

He called out Heineken for its recent “Sometimes Lighter Is Better” ad as being racist. 

What is it about those Northern Euro marketers—and I’m thinking H&M specifically, that have been called out more than once for racist-sounding ads. 

Earlier this year, H&M took a beating -- deservedly so -- for its ads featuring a black kid wearing a sweatshirt with “Coolest Monkey In the Jungle” written on it. 

I mean WTF? Honestly, how tone deaf can you be? 

I’m not sure either instance represents a case of overt racism. These are big brands in hugely competitive categories. 

Such brands have nothing to gain by being racist and everything to gain by not being racist. Like gaining smart, open-minded customers. 

Interestingly, In his Twitter string, Chance stressed he wasn’t urging people to boycott the Heineken brand. What he suggested was that the brand was intentionally putting out racist messages to get more views online. You know, a business strategy. 

Kinda reminds of what Trump did during his presidential campaign and all his “build a wall” BS. Appeal to all the racist voters out there. Sadly, it worked. In either case, quite despicable. 

I’m as paranoid as the next fellow, but when I look rationally at the Heineken screw-up (or try to anyway), I mainly see tone deafness, cultural insensitivity and, frankly stupidity. And let’s face it, stupid ads are a time-honored tradition. 

You know what Heineken. Be stupid. That’s your right. There’s only like 10,000 beers out there that taste the same or better than yours. Chance isn’t calling for a boycott and neither am I. But for being so tone deaf and idiotic, I’m deleting you from my personal beer menu. 

Stella Artois, anyone?