Watchmaker Swatch apologises for ‘slanted eye’ ad after online backlash in China
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Swatch Group, which also owns Omega, Longines and Tissot watches, is heavily exposed to China for revenue.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
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SHANGHAI - Swiss watchmaker Swatch has issued an apology and pulled ads featuring images of an Asian male model pulling the corners of his eyes up and back in a “slanted eye” pose.
The images for the Swatch essentials collection were widely condemned online in China, where many comments said they appeared to mimic racist taunts about Asian eyes.
Shares in the company slipped by as much as 4 per cent on Aug 18 before paring losses to trade 3.1 per cent lower.
“It is very significant for a brand of that scale to misfire in this way,” said Mr Mark Borkowski, who runs a public relations consultancy in London. “This carelessness is really quite a fundamental mistake.”
In an apology posted in both Chinese and English on its official account on the Weibo social media platform on Aug 16, Swatch said that it has “taken note of the recent concerns” and removed all related materials worldwide.
“We sincerely apologise for any distress or misunderstanding this may have caused,” the statement said. It also posted the same apology on Instagram.
Swatch Group declined to comment beyond its statement.
The campaign resulted in a backlash on social media.
“When I saw this news, I was quite shocked. Swatch has been in the Chinese market for many years, and I feel like most people are familiar with the brand,” said 23-year-old student Justin Zhao. “I don’t know why they did it. They were able to somehow release this after going through numerous approvals.”
Mr Borkowski said Swatch needed to investigate how the ad received the go-ahead from executives.
The criticism of the advert is the latest setback for a firm whose shares have fallen by more than half since early 2023 and now faces a 39 per cent tariff on its exports to the United States.
The group, which also owns Omega, Longines and Tissot watches, is heavily exposed to China for revenue, with around 27 per cent of the group’s sales in 2024 coming from the China, Hong Kong and Macau region.
Revenue for the watchmaker in 2024 slumped 14.6 per cent to 6.74 billion Swiss francs (S$10.7 billion), hit by a downturn in demand in China, where Swatch said it was seeing “persistently difficult market conditions and weak demand for consumer goods overall”.
Mr Peter Xu, a fashion influencer in China with over seven million Weibo followers, said he believed the controversy would impact Swatch’s business in China, but given the speed of the apology, the fallout was likely to be relatively short-term.
“It was pretty stupid to release images like those,” he said. REUTERS
