Oh, puhleeze! Now, PC captures candy

Truth: Chocolate is one of life’s top delights.

Another truth: Cadbury’s makes good chocolate.

Warning: Chocolate does not taste good when mixed with political correctness. Even if intentions are good.

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Cadbury’s thought it was doing something special for India’s 72nd independence celebration this month.

It invented a single candy bar that contains four kinds of chocolate. There’s dark chocolate and milk chocolate and blended chocolate and white chocolate all in one bar.

Called it the Unity Bar. To celebrate the many kinds of Indians in India. Get it? To combat racism. “Made to celebrate India and her people because sweet things happen when we unite,” the company said.

Sweet idea. No pun intended. As a publicity stunt, it works great. Look, we’re writing about it nearly 9,000 miles away.

A lot of people probably liked the fuzzy feeling. Even though, hey, it’s a candy bar. And it’s melty summer-time.

Others, however, on principle dislike this kind of corporate virtue-signaling. You know, just make the chocolate as good as usual. And next time leave out the dark chocolate. And maybe the white too.

India is a fascinating and diverse place. Very diverse. It’s now challenging China as the world’s most populous country with just under 1.4 billion people packed into an area about one-third the size of the United States.

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India’s Constitution designates Hindi as the official language, though English is also accepted for work. Around 44 percent of the country speaks Hindi. But — wait for it — 22 other languages are also recognized as regional languages.

Cadbury’s, which is actually owned by Mondelez International, which used to be Kraft Snack Foods, and its ad agency, Ogilvy India, caused a different kind of stir on social media in India.

Apparently, some of its Unity Bar ads used the wrong language in some regions. But, hey, that’s diverse too in its own clumsy way, right?

The Unity Bar was a limited edition confection. So, the threat of chocolate diversity in a single candy bar infecting North America is distant. Please pass the Hershey bar, the one with Almonds.

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | November 20, 2024
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