Earthquake in Haiti

Image by United Nations Photo via Flickr

     In this world of instant gratification, it's easy to forget that things are not always so instant. This article on Haiti reminds us of that. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35011584/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/ The problem with most people watching the horror is that we think that if we just show up, things will turn around immediately & everything will be ok. If that doesn't happen & the whole thing's a failure & it's all our fault.
     Here's the grim reality: Haiti's problems will not get fixed overnight. The earthquake literally wiped out over half the government workers & offices. Plan B was the United Nations. They have the exact same problem as the Haitian government. Up until last week, the harbor to Port-a-Prince was so severely damaged that you couldn't dock any ships there. The airport has one runway & very little space to store anything. The roads are completely impassable due to the severity of the quake & those are just the small problems.
     I know that cable news & bloggers have been going on & on about how the situation in Haiti is a complete failure because the help didn't get to every single person within a day or less. Things just don't work that was when you're dealing with a catastrophic earthquake. Success will take hard work & time; a LOT of time.

KFC Ad

Image via Wikipedia

     Back in December, KFC ran a tv ad in Australia about unruly cricket fans. The storyline was this. A white Australian cricket fan is trying to calm down loud & unruly black West Indian cricket fans. Suddenly, the Aussie takes out a bucket of KFC fried chicken. The crowd surrounds him & starts eating the chicken.  

     The commercial ran in Australia for a few weeks without anybody complaining about it in the land down under. God bless the Internet, though, because the commercial found its way onto it. Wouldn’t you know that the second it hit American shores, the fun was over. Now, KFC pulled the ad.

     In their press release, KFC said "We have been made aware that a KFC commercial being shown on Australian television has apparently caused offense, particularly in the United States, after a copy of the commercial was reproduced online without KFC's permission,". I like to call that the Scooby Doo defense - we would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling kids.  

      The main problem KFC has here is that it didn't think globally. In other words, what it does in one country can be felt in other countries. A while back, Hollywood stars, in a bid to seem like they didn't sell out in America, would instead do commercials overseas (mainly Germany & Japan). They didn't need to fear fans in America finding out because the internet wasn't a major part of life at that point. These days, the world is much more interconnected. People can watch tv live from Australia or the Middle East. 

     If KFC didn't release a commercial such as this in America because they knew it was stereotypical, what made them think that they could release it overseas & get away with it? A large corporation should know that things like this get around rapidly. Shame on KFC for blowing it off & blaming someone for their own insensitivity.
     Here's the ad. You can make up your own minds. To me, at the very least, it's insensitive. At the bottom, I also threw in an article that says that Americans are just over reacting to the whole thing. That may or may not be true but I put it in to counterbalance what I was saying.

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