Someone at Adidas must have been snoozing during the South American geography lesson in elementary school, because how else could you explain the company splashing “Columbia” all over ads featuring the Colombian soccer team?
See, Colombia is a country in South AMerica, while Columbia is a university, a district, a city in Missouri, and a sportswear company (among other things).
Adidas, headquartered in Germany, found itself in the crosshairs for mixing the two words up for a recent campaign for the Copa Americana soccer (or football, if you’re the rest of the world) tournament. The ads showed Colombian soccer players in their new home team Adidas jerseys, all ready to kick the ball around, with the word “COLUMBIA” plastered on the bottom.
Many fans were ready to kick the ball into Adidas’ face instead, as many expressed outrage over the spelling mistake on Twitter:
Including one Twitter user who posted a full-page open letter to Adidas, reading in part:
“In a world where ignorance is infamous when it comes to the acknowledgement of third world countries, it is unbeknownst to me why the correct spelling of COLOMBIA is so difficult to comprehend for the general public,” she wrote. “However, it is even more infuriating to see a MULTI-BILLION dollar company, as Adidas, misspell the national campaign of the country’s team they are trying to promote and drive revenue from their name.”
According to Remezcla, the company also made the mistake on its website, which has since been corrected.
The company apologized in a statement, saying it’s in the process of fixing the ads. Adidas has made the team’s uniforms since 2011.
“We value our partnership with the Colombian Football Federation and apologize for our mistake,” the statement reads. “We removed these graphics and are quickly installing new versions today.”
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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