Bata Malaysia has found itself in a sticky situation over the weekend as the brand made headlines in the country and among Netizensafter a poorly executed Creative Work of posted picture of the brand’s in-store promotional advertisement attracted the ire of the Customers for being racist (though unintentional)
The in-store promotion was found at the Bata KLCC store and sparked the fury of netizens.
Sanjay Naidu, who is also creative director of branding firm Exposure Brandworks, has noticed the faux-pas and highlighted the fact on his Face book account and exposed the poor standard of Creativity that was totally against company’s story which aimed to promote the historical element of the product. Now, Sanjay’s post has been growing 1 share per minute since he uploaded the news on his Facebook and filling up his comment box rapidly.
Naidu also he feels that the company needs to be more responsible when promoting products. He said: “The way they have highlighted the product is wrong. It should market the history properly, not blatantly like this.”
Earlier Sanjay Naidu had called up the outlet itself and had a brief conversation with a staff there named Jimmy. Sanjay said that because Jimmy wasn’t fluent in English, he kept on mumbling and chewing on his own words.
He asked the man about the promotion and Jimmy simply kept repeating “This one for India”. Sanjay felt like the staff was being very defensive even though he was asking in a calm voice. Jimmy told our source that he could talk to the HQ if he wanted to know more about the promotion, while clearly stating that he doesn’t have anything to do with it.
The BATA story stated that they created for school children in India in 1936 “Originally created for Indian school children, the pinstriped sneaker with the distinctive rubber toe guard became one of the best-selling shoes of all time – and is still sold around the world.”
Sanjay Naidu also went on proposed, who the same ad could have been designed in a better way with a reimagined Marketing ad: 
The month of April hasn’t been an easy one for Bata. Earlier this month, the company lost RM500, 000 after news surfaced about it selling shoes which has the word Allah imprinted on its sole circulated online. This was later found out to be fake, but the damage had been done.
