Another triump of HJS: Multinational ‘Bayer’ apologizes for denigration of Goddess Kalimata

Mumbai: On www.adsoftheworld.com, a specialized website related to advertisement,denigration of Hindu Goddess ‘Kalimata’ was done through the advertisement of the multinational company ‘Bayer’ mosquito repellent �Cinq sur Cinq�. On noticing this vulgar denigration,the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti questioned this denigration and protested this by sending their protest letter to the company’s offices at America, Germany and Japan. (> see below). On taking immediate cognizance of this, the President of ‘Bayer’ group Marc Lafeuille and the Florent Sallard the General Manager of advertising agency J. Walter Thompson in France,immediately tendered their unconditional apologies and informed about the removal of the above mentioned advertisement (>> see letters below).

(Hindus, from the successes obtained offer gratitude to God and realize that God is doing it. So do not worry even if you are alone or not in large numbers, as God has made his presence felt on numerous occasions. – Editor)

>Protest letter from HJS to Bayer

||Sree||

23-11-2006

To,

M/S Bayer

1. R. Christopher Seaton, Senior Vice President – USA
2. Kevin Kuehm, Vice President – USA
3. Horst-Eberhard Harenberg, Vice President- Germany
4. Business Development & Licensing � Japan
5. Dr. Arndt Brandes, Business Development & Licensing- Germany .
6. Bayer HealthCare LLC, Diagnostics Division- New York

Dear Sirs,

Subject: Hurting of religious sentiments of Hindus through your advertisement

We came across one of your advertisements of mosquito repellant at the following URL:
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/bayer_mosquito_repellent
The advertisement shows two images of the Hindu Goddess (Durga), the first one with ten hands and weapons in her hands and the second one with two hands and no weapons but a Bayer mosquito repellant by her side.

The message that gets conveyed through this is
1. That the weapons in the hands of the Goddess are meant for killing mosquitoes.
2. That Bayer mosquito repellant is more effective than the weapons of the Goddess.

This is utterly disgusting insult and denigration of Hindu Goddess that has hurt our religious sentiments and the sentiments of Hindus the world over. This has been brought to our notice by many Hindus from across the world. We would like to point out as to how this is derogatory.

1. The use of Goddess for the commercial purpose is highly objectionable as Gods and Goddesses are icons of worship and devotion and not advertisement. This is a direct insult and denigration of Hindu Goddess. We would like to ask you that in light of the worldwide violent protests against the Prophet’s cartoons by the Muslims would you try this out on Prophet?

2. The weapons in the hands of the Goddess are meant for destruction of evil and the demons and its form is described in the various holy Hindu Texts and not for Killing of mosquitoes. By distortion of the image of the Goddess in the second image you have also denigrated and insulted the Goddess and hurt the religious sentiments of the Hindus.

We do not believe that this has happened out of ignorance and it is quite surprising to know that it has occurred from a reputed multinational company of your repute that boasts of various noble, social, and humanitarian services and which has a substantial market in Hindu dominant India. The far fetched consequences could be boycott of your products which could hit your sales and market and blacklist you as ‘Anti-Hindu’

We appeal to you to
1. Immediately withdraw this advertisement
2. Render an unconditional apology of Hindus the world over for hurting of religious sentiments and assure of not repeating such acts in future. We look forwards to your prompt reply and response.

Dr. Manoj Solanki
Spokesperson,
Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (Hindu Awareness Forum)
India

>>Apology letter from Marc Lafeuille, President of Bayer

From:[email protected]
To:[email protected]

To

Dr. Manoj Solanki
BG-3, Ground floor,
Marvil Apartments, Phase II St. Cruz
Ponda, Goa
403401 INDIA

Re : Hurting of religious sentiments of Hindus through advertisement for a mosquito repellent

Dear Sir,

We acknowledge receipt of your November 21 message which was sent to various persons within the Bayer group.

Upon receipt of this message, we have immediately investigated this matter and found that one of our advertising agencies in France, J. Walter Thompson, without any prior request or instruction from us, took the initiative of creating an advertisement for the mosquito repellent �Cinq sur Cinq� which our company is commercializing in France. Moreover, without our prior knowledge or consent, this agency’s creative team decided to put this advertisement on a specialized web site (adsoftheworld.com) on which advertising agencies usually share and challenge their new creations.

As soon as we have discovered this situation, we have immediately contacted J. Walter Thompson which fully acknowledged its mistake, made apologies for any inconvenience caused by this advertisement and agreed to take all necessary steps to withdraw it from the web site as soon as practically possible.

Should we be aware of such advertisement, we would never have agreed to use it for any purpose. We take great care in never using advertising materials which may hurt the religious feelings of any community.

We are very sorry for all troubles and inconveniences caused by this situation which, as we can assure you and as J. Walter Thompson will shortly confirm to you, was not caused by our company nor any other company within the Bayer group. We take this opportunity to express our deep respect for the Hindu Community.

Yours sincerely,

Bayer Sant� Familiale
Marc Lafeuille
President

>>Apology letter from Florent Sallard, General Manager, JWT Paris

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

Subject: Hurting of religious sentiments of Hindus through our advertisement.

Dear Sir,

We write you about the e-mail that you sent to our client, BAYER, on November 21st 2006 concerning the webcasting on the website www.adsoftheworld.com of a visual dealing with the mosquito repellent “cinq sur cinq” product marketed by BAYER in France.

We immediately investigated in order to understand what happened and you will find below a summary of our findings :

– this visual was created on the own initiative of JWT Paris by a team of creatives working for the agency, this visual was not created from instructions received from BAYER,

– this visual was made exclusively for an internal creative contest,

Very unfortunately the creative team who had worked on this visual (again meant to be used for pure internal JWT purposes) decided to send it to the professional website www.adsoftheworld.com (mostly designed for being a forum for professional creatives) without notifying their hierarchy. For your information this website clearly states that “Submissions will not be posted automatically, we reserve the right to decide whether publish or not”.

This visual was therefore conceived only for pure internal creative purpose (and not at all for commercial purposes) and it should never have been posted on this website. We are very sorry that this visual led to so much concerns as disclosed in your e:mail to BAYER and we have taken immediate action to ask this website to withdraw it as soon as possible.

We would like to insist on the fact that it has never been our intention to hurt the religious sentiments of the Hindus Community and that BAYER should not be blamed for this. Again we, JWT Paris and the creatives who work on this visual, do apologize for what happened and all its inconveniences, and undertake to refrain from using this advertisement for any purpose.

Yours sincerely,

Florent Sallard
JWT Paris General Manager