• Salt Lake Tribune, Monday, April 9, 2007 11:45 AM

A Salt Lake City car dealership has pulled a TV ad campaign featuring a character representing Confucius after complaints from at least two Asian-American groups. The Ken Garff Automotive Group had been running the spots for its Honda cars.In them, a character representing the Chinese philosopher is asked a question, and it is answered in broken English.

The University of Utah's Asian-American Student Association and the Utah Organization of Chinese-Americans sent letters to the dealership saying they wanted the spots off the air. "It is as offensive to Confucian believers for your company to invoke Confucius as a method to sell your products as it would be to the LDS [Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] faithful had you invoked Joseph Smith or Jesus Christ for crass commercial purpose," writes community leader Michael Kwan.

Steven King, the dealerships advertising vice president, says that after getting the letter, he immediately contacted the Chinese-Americans and had the campaign stopped. "We are not in the business of offending anybody. We made a huge mistake here," he says. For Kwan, "I don't think they intended to offend anyone. I think they were trying to be cute and clever. And very short of their goal, they ended up being hurtful and offensive." Post-ad pull, he says they were initially approved "more out of ignorance than malice."

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