This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 20 top spokesperson fiascos.
Companies wishing to appeal to sensory-overloaded customers sometimes have to swallow hard and sign edgy spokespersons (I'm looking at you, Pepsi). But what could go wrong for UNICEF Belgium, the local arm of the United Nations Children's Fund, in adopting the beloved Smurfs as its spokescreatures?
Plenty, it turns out, when the Fund decided to use the Smurfs to shake people out of their complacency about the plight of the soldier children of Africa. To this end, they created an ad that ran (briefly) on Belgian television, showing the air-bombing and destruction of a smurf village, including the collateral blue damage. The tiny azure baby wailing amidst bomb craters and smurf corpses was an especially compelling touch.
Apparently, when the ad ran on Belgian television during the evening news, it left the audience in smurfy shock. According to a UNICEF Belgium spokesman, controversy was its goal, but the chief reaction to the snufftoon seems to have come from an amazingly large populace of smurf-haters, who have plastered the video across the Internet. The moral? When you adopt a warm fuzzy spokesthingy, injure it at your own peril.











Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-17-2008 @ 2:50PM
ConcernedParent said...
Sick, just plain sick to do that to children...as if they haven't been exposed to enough, we now need to show more violence!!! And yet we sit back and wonder why kids are so violent these days? HELLLOOOOOO wake up people!
7-17-2008 @ 7:28PM
Sikdude said...
Best. Commercial. Ever.
7-17-2008 @ 11:09PM
BabyGirl said...
Oh...my...God! To think that someone would want to do that to a children's cartoon! What kind of people would do that sort of thing? That is so horrible! Those poor children that watched that, their beloved cartoon creatures being maimed like that. I hope that not too many children, especially very young ones, saw this pitiful excuse for a commercial. There are much better ways to get across the point of war/violence happening anywhere than to use a children's cartoon show characters! I just don't see what makes this such a great commercial in the eyes of some people.
7-18-2008 @ 1:46PM
LisaS said...
This is one of the most disturbing things that I have ever seen. I can imagine that there have been many children who have been traumatized by seeing their beloved cartoon characters "killed". UNICEF ought to be ashamed of themselves. As for those who have plastered this sick piece of crap on the internet...You are a bunch of degenerates. Shame on you too.
7-19-2008 @ 12:22PM
Marty said...
It is horrible that children were exposed to the violence of war with a cartoon, the only thing that might have been worse would have been exposing them to real maimed children in a battle scene from a real war. The violence in the media is stylized, children do not really "experience" it, so they emulate it, not really understanding the devestating impact of it. Only Jackie Chan shows outtakes in his movies, and demonstrates that it is make believe, other action movies, are so realistic, that children try out stuff they see, because they think it is possible.
7-19-2008 @ 12:54PM
Jenny said...
Yes well as TRAMATIZING as it is for little stupid blue cartoon characters to be shown being killed... hat do you think about the real thing happening... yes to LITTLE DEFENSLESS CHILDREN..... if you're to busy to teach your children about the epidemic in Africa then who the hell will teach them? hmmm..? just because this isn't happening right next door to you dosn't mean you can ignore it! your little children might be seeing this happening to cartoon charecters... but somone elses little children are actually EXPERIENCING this happening to THEM... if this is the only way to get it through you peoples heads then i applaud whoever made this commercial because apparently children aren't going to learn the terror happening in the world from their parents....
7-19-2008 @ 1:34PM
DrZaius said...
The only thought that comes into my head when I see this is, "What the heck did they do to the Smurfs and why did they make such a stupid and tasteless decision!?"
Maybe they should come up with a commercial that makes me think about something RELATED to the ACTUAL MESSAGE they're trying to bring across.
7-26-2008 @ 1:59AM
Sable said...
First of all, the ages of the viewers are to young to grasp the idea of the message which is simply terrorism to the children along with great emotional and psychological abuse.
The excuse is the cover-up of claiming this as an educational aid.
Some of us aren't as stupid as you obviously wish we'd be.