Fail H&M · 2018
H&M's hoodie and the word on it
🇬🇧 United Kingdom🇿🇦 South Africa🇺🇸 United States
What happened
H&M's UK web shop showed a Black child modelling a hoodie reading 'Coolest monkey in the jungle'. The image spread on 8 January 2018; the company apologised, pulled the product, and stores in South Africa were vandalised during protests.
What went wrong
'Monkey' as applied to Black people is one of the oldest racist slurs in English and Afrikaans alike. No one in the chain from copy to catalogue photography stopped it.
The rule
Slur-adjacent words are market-specific and product-copy is where they slip through — the check has to happen on the merchandise line, not only on the campaign.
Takeaway
Anyone reviewing creative for a market needs to be from that market. This was not a translation problem; it was an absence problem.