Salesgenie.com president Vinod Gupta has apologized for two offensive SuperBowl ads featuring animated pandas that spoke with painfully stereotypical “Chinese” accents and an “animated salesman named Ramesh who speaks with an Indian or other South Asian accent.”:

“We never thought anyone would be offended,” said Mr. Gupta, who developed and wrote both commercials himself.

“The pandas are Chinese,” he said. “They don’t speak German.”

Still, “if I offended anybody,” Mr. Gupta said, “believe me, I apologize.”

Mr. Gupta says his company will pull the panda ad.

An Ad With Talking Pandas, Maybe, but Not With Chinese Accents [New York Times]

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