Google – AFP, 5 November 2013
File
picture shows Italian pasta maker Barilla's products at an event in Union
Square
in New York City on August 15, 2011 (Getty Images/AFP/File, Michael
Loccisano)
|
Rome —
Italian pasta maker Barilla has called in experts to help overhaul its image
and promote diversity in its ads after its CEO sparked outrage by saying he
would never use gay couples in commercials.
American
gay rights activist David Mixner and Italian Paralympics cyclist and ex-Formula
One driver Alex Zanardi are among the high-profile international figures called
in to advise the embarrassed company, a spokesman said Tuesday.
The pasta
maker fought boycott calls after chief executive Guido Barilla gave an
interview in September in which he said that "the concept of a canonical
family remains one of the fundamental values of the business."
Asked if he
would include a gay couple in one of his television commercials, he said:
"We would not do it because ours is a traditional family".
"If
(gay people) like our pasta, they can eat it. If they do not like it, if they
do not like what we say, they can eat a different one," he added, sparking
a major backlash and forcing the company to take to social media to apologize.
Barilla is
the leading pasta company in Italy and a major exporter worldwide, with a
turnover last year of 3.9 billion euros ($5.3 billion).
The Barilla
spokesman said that the company's ads had already changed.
"We no
longer see women in the kitchen in the latest Barilla ads, and it is men who do
the food shopping," he said, citing a commercial in which Spanish actor
Antonio Banderas bakes his own Barilla bread to eat with a group of men.
The company
has also appointed a head diversity officer and will sign up to the Human
Rights Campaign's corporate equality index, which rates companies on how open
they are to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees.
The Barilla
spokesman said the initiatives had "been in the works for over a
year" and were not an attempt to clean up the company's image after the
backlash over the CEO's anti-gay remarks.
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