People in China have been protesting Pizza Hut's commercial for its Shrimp Balls that depicts two cartoon people talking about the product and referring to the animated version of the balls as confusingly rolling around... because they are blind balls.
The word "rolling" is often used as a curse in the country, and the words "shrimp" and "blind" have the same pronunciation in some dialects. Many of the blind protesters donned shirts with slogans that read "I am not a blind ball".
Pizza Hut pulled the video from major Chinese online video portals as well as its social media platforms and has issued an apology on a microblog post. However, the company was lambasted again when it was pointed out that the very people who found the advertisement most offensive, wouldn't be able to read it on the Internet because most text-to-speech software used by the visually impaired would be unable to see a digital image that was included with the apology.
This latest faux-pas comes on the heels of the pizza giant's parent company, Yum Brands' apology to the Chinese people for supplying its fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken, with meat that had come from animals treated with antibiotics to speed up their growth."
