A bottled water company from Durban, South Africa has recently found itself at the center of controversy with Chinese netizens.
The company has produced bottles of water with the name ‘It’s Not Made in China’ since 2014…
Source: itsnotmadeinchina.co.za
… but social media posts from Global Times and Chuancha.cn last month made a big splash on the Chinese-language web. The hashtag #ThisWaterIsNotMadeinChina blew up with over 264,000 views on Weibo and a stream of angry visitors has been leaving their thoughts on the South African company’s Instagram account.
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Netizens have been saying:
“I’m going to strongly boycott it.”
(However, since it’s not sold in China, we kind of wonder how they’re going to do that?)
“If it’s not made in China, I won’t drink it.”
“You created a brand with no quality, and yet you still can’t make it popular.”
Along with some slightly meaner things that we won’t type out here.
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In response, the company has stated, “We never planned to create a controversy.” We had an idea to do things a little differently, and because everyone is so used to reading ‘made in China’ on just about everything. We knew that by saying the opposite and calling ourselves, ‘It’s Not Made in China’, we would signal that we wanted to do things a little differently.”
Credit: instagram.com
To counter claims of racism on their Instagram page, the company replied,
“Hi. We’re really sorry you feel so offended by the name ‘It’s Not Made in China.’ We stick by the claim that we are not racist and we chose the name to be different. ‘Made in China’ is something everybody is used to – ‘It’s Not Made in China’ is different and we chose it because we wanted to do things differently. If every product had ‘It’s Not Made in Yugoslavia’ on it – we would’ve called ourselves ‘It’s Not Made in Yugoslavia.’ If we travelled to China and found a product there called ‘It’s Not Made in South Africa,’ we would not lose any sleep over it or feel that it was racist.”
While the company told reporters from the South China Morning Post that they were feeling almost bullied into changing their name, we doubt anything will happen over it. However, it’s highly unlikely that this water will ever be imported to China. The increased publicity might help drive in South Africa though.
What do our readers think about this – is this water racist or just a quirky marketing ploy?
Let us know in the comments below!
Credit: giphy.com