Jawed Habib Got Trolled For Featuring Hindu Gods In The Ad Of Salon Ahead Of Durga Puja

Advertisements are very helpful in attracting customers and this is the reason as to why companies spend a lot on making good ads and in fact, they don’t mind paying huge amount to celebrities for getting featured in the ads of their products.

However, ads should be made keeping in mind that they don’t hurt religious sentiments of any community. Normally, it has been observed that hurting religious sentiments of Hindus is something which many organisations like to get indulged in because of the simple fact that they don’t retaliate much and forgive the other person or party for their ignorant behaviour. But now it seems that there is a change in the community and they don’t mind giving a mouthful to those who hurt their sentiments, at least on social media.

Jawed Habib, the famous hair stylist and owner of chains of hair salons, got into big trouble after an ad was released in Kolkata. This ad showed Hindu Gods relaxing in Jawed Habib hair salon, doing make-up and counting money. The tag-line of the ad was, “Gods too visit JH salon”.

The advertisement got heavily slammed on social media and Twitterati thrashed it right and left, asking Jawed Habib as to why only Hindu Gods and Goddess are featured in the ad and why he has not shown Prophet Mohammad also enjoying the services of his salon.

Here are some selected tweets:

Uncivilized:

Can anyone answer?

Tricks for publicity:

Freedom of speech:

https://twitter.com/AbhijeetMishirG/status/905036771888480256

Rubbish:

https://twitter.com/AsYouNotWish/status/905017213974855680

Where is prophet?

Appropriate action must be taken:

https://twitter.com/Prachi_Patel_/status/905103765069430784

Boycott his salon:

Jawed Habib reacted quickly to the outrage and apologised for the ad. As per him, he and his company never intended to hurt the religious sentiments of any community and the ad had been published by Kolkata franchise without getting it approved by the Chairman and the company.

He apologised in a series of tweets,

“We understand our ad didn’t go well wid readers, we hereby clarify tht we duly respect, value and do not wish to hurt anyone’s sentiments. We regret this incidence & express our heartfelt apology. We fully respect all faiths & beliefs…we do not want to hurt anyone’s feelings. We never want to hurt anyone’s sentiments…we apologise sincerely!”

He also made it clear that he has only one religion and that is the religion of scissors. After series of tweets, he also posted a video:

https://twitter.com/JH_JawedHabib/status/905021957787140096

Click here to watch this video directly on Twitter

However, there were some netizens who didn’t find anything wrong in the ad and called this outrage as unnecessary.

https://twitter.com/saileenas/status/905334952681553920

We feel that such ads which feature Gods should be avoided as they can be interpreted in many ways and may result in infuriating people. What do you have to say in this connection?