UK Casting Call for Chocolate Ad Bans Redheads

Over the weekend, a United Kingdom casting call for Milka chocolate sparked outrage by banning overweight and redhead children. The ad was discovered and posted on Twitter by Helen Raw, a performer in Scotland. The ad reads, “Eye colour and hair colour are not important but no Red Hair.” And continues to say, “No Overweight children as this is advertising chocolate.”

As soon as the ad hit Twitter, outrage set in.

Just look at this casting wording for a 9-11 YEAR OLD!! pic.twitter.com/HcQeOhz0eZ

— Helen Raw (@helenraw) August 8, 2019

The UK casting company, Spotlight, later apologized for publishing the casting call saying, “We made a serious error and we should have done much, much better. We’re sorry.”

READ: TV Commercials Really Do Feature a High Number of Redheads

We made a serious error yesterday and we're very sorry https://t.co/LOchj3xfwP pic.twitter.com/ve0vGzpCl3

— Spotlight (@SpotlightUK) August 10, 2019

Mondelēz International, the company that owns Milka, also issued a statement saying, “We’d like to thank people for bringing this casting notice to our attention. We take our advertising responsibility very seriously and this is not representative of the brief we shred with the casting agency and does not meet our high standards. We would never approve the use of such notice and are urgently reviewing the situation with Spotlight UK to understand how and why it has happened.”

Twitter users, especially redheads, took to the social media outlet to share their thoughts using the #BoycottMilka hashtag:

No red hair?! Well that’s the last time I buy Milka at the airport after forgetting to get anything on holiday for my coworkers https://t.co/pMKS4Rbw7i

— Katy Docherty (@katydocherty) August 9, 2019

This is beyond disturbing in every possible way. And what’s the deal with “hair colour not important but no red hair?” What are we, the devil’s children? #Milka https://t.co/k2OxKacLKF

— Ellen King (@ellenjuliaking) August 9, 2019

So #redheads cant be beautiful, angelic, sweet…?? I'm about to have my first child who will almost more than likely have auburn hair and just reminds me of all the insecurities and teasing I experienced…thought we were past this…clearly not, well done #Milka 🤦🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️ https://t.co/WR0ZRLM9vM

— Claire Armitage (@Claire_MCR) August 11, 2019

https://twitter.com/LangleyLillia/status/1160638352019865602

.@milkaofficiel (aka @CadburyUK) doesn’t want redheads advertising their products. Guess they don’t want us buying them either. https://t.co/ad80MG69lY

— Jude Taylor (@PunkeeJudester) August 11, 2019

https://twitter.com/nikkibray9/status/1159905936191950849

https://twitter.com/bickie0/status/1160516561465225217

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