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Salesgenie Panda Ad Is History Says Ceo

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by Jeff Bercovici
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Feb 06 2008 12:00am EDT

SalesGenie Panda Ad Is History, Says CEO

Say "zai jian" to those annoying pandas. The CEO of SalesGenie.com parent InfoUSA says he's sorry he wrote and aired a Super Bowl ad starring stereotyped Chinese characters, and promises it won't run again.

"We never thought anyone would be offended," Vin Gupta tells The New York Times -- a claim somewhat undercut by his pre-game promise that his company's ads would be the night's very worst.

Somewhat ironically, given the timing of Gupta's climbdown, a spokesman for the Media Action Network for Asian Americans told me last night that his group has decided not to denounce the ad (or its companion spot, featuring an Indian man with seven kids) as racist after all. "Panda bears and salesmen speaking in accents to get a laugh may examples of uninspired writing, but there's nothing inherently racist about just using accents," says the spokesman, Phil Lee. "We choose not to reward the company with more coverage than it's already received."

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