Anti-racism banana campaign ‘actually a planned marketing stunt’

By Rich Leigh on Wednesday, April 30, 2014

The Banana Selfie Campaign Against Racism Was Actually A Planned Marketing Stunt screams Buzzfeed.

So?

For one, I’m sick of the term ‘stunt’ being used disparagingly. A PR/marketing stunt isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though through the media and popular usage, it’s used to slight our industry.

Secondly, though pre-planned back when Brazilians Neymar Jr and Dani Alves were last racially abused at Espanyol back in late March, it took just a few weeks for the next idiot to lob a banana in his direction.

The idea was concocted by Neymar, Alves and marketing agency Loducca.

Apparently, it was planned that whichever of the two was the victim of the next hurled banana, they would eat it ‘live on TV’. The resulting campaign has seen waves of famouses and normals posting photos of themselves eating bananas. It all started after Neymar posted this photo of himself in support of Alves, accompanied by the hashtag ‘#WeAreAllMonkeys’:

Guga Ketzer, partner in agency Loducca, who according to the Metro, worked on the project with Brazilian marketers Meio e Mensagen, told Spanish paper AS: ‘Actions speak louder than words. A gesture needs no translation and what we’re seeing is that this has gone viral, globally. The idea was for Neymar to eat the banana, but in the end it was Alves, and that works just the same.

‘The best way to beat prejudice is to take the sting out of the racist action so it isn’t repeated. We created #somostodosmacacos and #weareallmonkeys, with the gesture of eating a banana, and it has been turned into a movement.’

Here’s Alves and the moment he ate the banana. You know, for completeness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXJqkzHPgRM

Thanks to Robert Kusabbi for tweeting the Buzzfeed link I spotted.