Spiegel Online reports on a new food product in Germany: Obama-Fingers. Yes, fried chicken named for our first African-American president. Not that the company responsible for this marketing gambit intended any insult. Sprehe sales manager Judith Witting tells Spiegel Online, “We noticed that American products and the American way of eating are trendy at the moment. Americans are more relaxed. Not like us stiff Germans, like (Chancellor Angela) Merkel…. It was supposed to be a homage to the American lifestyle and the new U.S. president.” Which is understandable. And besides, who doesn’t love chicken fingers? (This particular brand comes with curry — a common condiment in Germany though in truth, it is not an Indian curry but more like barbecue sauce.) No, there are far more offensive and politically incorrect marketing schemes that have come out of Europe over the years. For instance, a colleague swears he saw (in Italy) a type of wine advertised as “Gallo Negro” along with sayings like “Beware of…” and “If you dare!” In Germany I once saw an ad on a bus for a chocolate-covered ice cream in the shape of a banana and a woman’s lips having just taken a bite. When I lived in Austria from 1993-1994, McDonald’s ran a promotional “China Woche” (China week) that featured tempura-fried items and eggrolls. They came in a cute little red box with a smiling Chinese caricature complete with eye slits and buckteeth. Worse, in the supermarket you could buy a bar of chocolate called Negerbrot (which I will not translate) that featured an illustrated Aunt Jemima-type. Luckily, based on Google searches, that brand seems hard to find these days. Update: My colleague now informs me that the ad he saw was in Italy and was not called “Le Coq Noir” but rather “Gallo Negro,” a type of wine.
