4 replies to this topic

[Guthlac]

http://www.telegraph...g-campaign.html

Italy national train company accused of racist advertising campaign

Italy's national train company has been accused of being patronising and racist over a new advertising campaign in which the cheapest of four new classes of rail travel is occupied by a family of Asian immigrants.

Trenitalia launched the campaign to announce that from now on its high-speed Frecciarossa (Red Arrow) intercity trains will have four classes instead of the traditional two: Executive, Business, Premium and Standard.

The online campaign showed a white businessman in a smart suit showing a presentation to two white colleagues in an Executive carriage.

The new Business class was illustrated with an image of plush but empty upholstered seats, while Premium featured a white rail employee offering drinks to two middle-class white passengers.

The ad for Standard, the cheapest of the four classes, featured a smiling Asian couple and their daughter.

It created a storm on blogs and social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

"This time they've made a big mistake," and "Trenitalia has really gone off the rails" were among the comments.

The offending image was swiftly removed earlier this week, shortly after the campaign was launched.
Trenitalia had already sparked controversy with a proposal that passengers in the cheapest class will not be allowed to use restaurant carriages or even venture into the more expensive carriages, prompting charges in the blogosphere and Italian media of promoting an economic "apartheid".

Trenitalia vociferously denied the accusations of racism, saying that the image with the Asian family was just one of several which were chosen to illustrate the new Standard category of seats.

The company also said it was "false" to say that the upper three classes of travel featured only white people.
The campaign included videos which featured a "coloured" manager with white colleagues in Executive class, and a young Arab woman in Premium class, the state-owned corporation said.

Italy has traditionally been a country of emigration, rather than immigration, with millions of impoverished peasants and city dwellers heading for the United States, Canada, Australia and Latin America in the 19th and 20th centuries.  Really, and what about the tens of millions who left England to go these countries (and founded them) and the negligible amount of immigration to England  until the 1950's.

It sometimes seems ill at ease with the relatively recent phenomenon of immigration, which is changing the face of big cities like Milan, Turin and Rome.

[southerner]

They'll have to make an ad showing whites hanging on the outside of the cars before they'll be happy.

[Aengifu]

They forgot the illegals hanging onto the roof.

[Searu man]

They pay?

[Eassex cempa]

God I hate working late, my fellow forumites get in early and beat me  too the hanging off The roof and sides comments, nice ones folcs.

E C