Anti-Pakistani Ad Campaign VS. a Pakistani
Less than 2 days ago, I randomly noticed a link circulating on twitter. It took me to the promotional page for a Moa Beer (click the image above to see a screenshot of their page). Below is the image Moa Brewery was using to promote their brand for this campaign.
This ad text says:
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Pakistanis love cricket and they love making money. Sometimes they combine the two with a good old Pakistani Match Fix so that the Black Caps get to win a game and the Pakistanis get a big cheque from the TAB
It's a win-win all round and we here at Moa love the business principles behind it, which is why we're offering a Pakistani Backhander of our own.
So for every 10 cases of Moa ordered, the contact person who does the ordering, that's you, gets 10 per cent of the match fee - a free case of Moa beer for themselves that we don't tell anyone about.
Is this ethical? No. Is it Pakistani? Yes!
But best of all no one's going to really care because all of a sudden there is Moa in the fridge instead of that frizzy lolly water from Otahuhu or East Tamaki.
Daryl Tuffey.
Genuine all-rounder for Moa Beer
(Daryl Tuffey's endorsing signature)
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My first response was a disgruntled… “why insult all Pakistanis?”
My further investigation in to the ad’s page code revealed what Moa Brewery’s marketing department has been calling their little ad campaign stunt.
Paki, are we?… my second response was.. “Bhaaennnnchooooood!!! why the fuck are those motherfuckers fucking with Pakistanis??!!!”. Excuse my French in the rest of the post, you have been Warned. Its just that this subject happens to be very… French, to me. Let me be clear, if you know me in person, you know I control my temper extremely well, I keep myself pleasantly composed and peaceful at all times for the love of those around me. You can never tell when I am actually angry, however… sometimes… rarely.. I come across just the right mix of spice, nice and douchebagery. These a-hole retardosauruses, ladies and gentlemen, have met that gold standard. They have messed with my nationality and everyone from my country, ridiculed its ethics as if their own bigoted view is really what’s just inherent in every Pakistani. I quote them “Is it Ethical. No. Is It Pakistani. Yes!”. They didn’t refer to some Pakistani institution or team, they said “Pakistanis”, all of us, they’re talking about me (and very likely you). Every huge problem is once a small ignored issue… Let me take a composed intellectual moment here to really reflect what I am doing here. You know, back in the 5th century, around about 510 BC, there was a brilliant Chinese social philosopher and master wise-man named Confucius, who once said… “when someone disrupts your peace… go fuck that motherfucker up!” (or something like that).
Very well Confucius. I started composing a documentary film structure, synopsis and possible subjects to touch on. Footage research going parallel. Contacted journalists for new material I will release to them. Human rights workers for the different levels of rights Moa Brewery has taken the liberty of abusing, and how far Moa Brewery and particularly their Marketing Manager can be taken. Upon further research, I discovered that Moa Brewery had been repeatedly bugged in the media for their marketing stunt at the expense of Pakistanis. Here is one of the many articles online: Brewery takes aim at Pakistanis. You can google to find more, in summary, they pretty much refuse to apologize. Great, nice starting plot. Frankly speaking, actually whats happening here is that these marketing cowboys have purposefully come up with a “shock marketing stunt” (they had done something else targeting LGBT earlier) and they think they’ll just get away with offending an entire nationality, they think they’ll leave Pakistanis just mumbling and just refuse to apologize.
I composed myself and composed a reasonable argument and emailed it to their marketing manager. Thats the guy I want. I need to know that these guys are really assholes to the core and are in no way willing to compromise the ad.
To make sure I am heard, I took to twitter, first by responding to the tweet I discovered the shenanigans from.
@sanakazmi @cpyala just wrote a pissed of letter to Moa Brewing for http://t.co/IUCVubr @MOABEER Respond!less than a minute ago via web 
Favorite 
Retweet 
Reply
Ali Kapadia
alikapadia
I did not receive any reply to my tweet. Dug and found the twitter account for Moa’s marketing manager and bugged him there too.
@moamonkey Respond to my email! It is blatantly clear ur ad refers to ALL #Pakistanis. Apologize b4 we run a #racism campaign against YOU!less than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet ReplyAli Kapadia
alikapadia
It was starting to feel like I will be ignored. That.. pisses me off even more!
Now… I wanted Anonymous on their ass!!
@samwirah what’s the best way to get in touch with Anonymous? To bring their attention an open racist campaign by a company @AnonymousIRC ?less than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet ReplyAli Kapadia
alikapadia
Interesting enough, right when I mentioned anonymous in my tweets, is around when I received a tweet reply back.
@alikapadia @sanakazmi @cpyala Hello Mr Ali, we have received your email & will respond shortly cheersless than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet Reply
Moa Brewing Co.
MOABEER
Ok. Reasonable enough. I’ll calm down and figure out the contexts for the documentary meanwhile. Their tweet was at around 10:30am New Zealand time.
Entire work day in New Zealand passes by. I emailed them around 6:30pm New Zealand time.
This is when I also started tweeting everyone who was mentioning/tagging/discussing the Moa brand on twitter and requesting them to ask Moa to stop specifically targeted racist ad campaign against my ethnicity, got them aware. I also tweeted the following to Moa and Mr. Sunil.
@MOABEER @moamonkey Respond Shortly?? The Entire workday has begun & passed by! How long did it take u to write ur racist ad? #MoaRacistBeerless than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet ReplyAli Kapadia
alikapadia
Finally got a reply an hour later.
Let me make something clear here. I have a fairly well understanding of freedom of expression. One of my documentaries touched the subject. All of my protest has its strength only because its simply unjustifiable to attack an entire nationality/race/ethnicity and its a strong case. These guys of course have their right (to make themselves look like bigots), however fighting over someone ridiculing the cricket team is not what I personally see as a fight worth the while. If they choose to ridicule the team, which is already a public entity, I can’t do much about it because I am not the Pakistani cricket team. I am a Pakistani, I was born one and its my inherent identity. A blanket insult to all Pakistanis is far worst that ridiculing a scandal any team members were involved in. As far as the ad campaign offending Pakistanis is concerned, I can fight it and take it all the way till the end when they HAVE to give up. As long as they offend me, call me Paki, or Unethical by default, they have a terrible case to defend in front of all authorities and potential documentary viewers (which will exist if they continue to be inconsiderate and mess things up for themselves).
I added the following, hinting what was “really” expected of him to prevent this from turning in to a snake in the neck of his career.
The last line in the email above is my “yeh bhooka nanga kis ko kaha hai?” moment.
I am thankful to Mr. Sunil, that he understood what I was talking about in the rest of that email, and thought about how ugly this will get if he stayed in denial. 7 hours later. Behold..
Appeased I am! Here you go, this is the link where their online presence “used to be”. Click it and enjoy the view: The Moa Pakistani Backhander. Beautiful.
And by the way, to all those who say click activism doesn’t work… fuck you too! 
Hugs n Kisses
Ali Kapadia
Update – Sep 7th, 2011: I came across some incorrect news claiming that PCB had gotten this ad to shut down. I was once asked to give them partial credit. I am very happy to give ‘credit’ to anyone who wants it, I really don’t care. My concern has been the racial prejudice against Pakistanis. For sake of clarity, the earliest report of PCB taking any notice is from 4th of September, over 2 days after the ad was shut down. There is no report of PCB threatening to take any legal action against Moa what so ever. They’ve recently stated that they will Not take legal action since the ad has been pulled down, dated 6th of September. My blog post has been up here since the 1st of September, the emails posted here date back till the 31st of August. Facts aside, I am happy to credit anyone who cares to have it.
Remarkable job Ali, extremely proud of your efforts both online and on-the-ground.
yar bohut aala! sir jee tussi chah gaye THA THA THA kerke! very proud of you mate!
Dude this is awesome.
Cheers.
Great work Ali. And thanks for sharing this. Proud of you!
Cheers.
Great work Ali, your pressure has opened the wound of Paki bashing & stopped it ..no more turning the other cheek!
Ali Kapadia …you rock man:) awesome post… bravo…hatts off to you… Standing applauds;)
Awesome! Way to go Ali Kapadia – you make us proud!
And to the last statement of yours, click activism works wonders. It has to be the most efficient form of bring accountability to shameless corporations – and we all know, there are quiet a few of those around!
BRAVO!
Way to go!!
Proud of you, “Paki” brother!
nicely done!!!
awesome man. thank you for doing that for us. keep it up.
Hot damn! Good one!
Thank you Ali – you rock as usual
Chaa gaye ho yara!! Awesome work!!! And yes, click activism kicks arse!
Great job Ali – we’re proud of you!
Wow!
I don’t know you or of you Ali, but that was fantastic.
Very cool.
Proud of you My Brother!!!!!
Good Job Ali proud of you.
Great Job !!!
علی ! تم نے پاکستانی ہونے کا حق ادا کر دیا – شاباش -
PROUD OF YOU
You made your country proud. : ‘)
There’s prolly no point in bringing this up now since you’ve successfully been able to discontinue that campaign (and bravo for that)… but I think the image of Afridi and Younis Khan on the top left was pretty offensive too…
Awesome Job man!!!
i really appreciate ur efforts!!
Ali bro hats off to you i dont have words to express my feelings for you at the moment. brilliant job done bro feeling proud to be Pakistani (as i always do) and glad to see that there are many who can stand for that identity.
and to all those who said that click activism is lame… Ali has already replied you all
Kudos Mr. Kapadia! Ever consider teaching a course on viewer activism and how to get what you want out of companies? I lived vicariously through this post. Thanks bunches!
Mr Ali Kapadia, sir I want to kiss your hand.
Thank you Ali !
great work Ali. Proud of u.
Great Work Ali. *Thumbs up*
hats off to you! well done :]
Dude,
That was damn awesome. Hats off to u man. Great job.
Ahmer
Jazak Allah
Excellent job Ali …
Great work bro.
Sir,
Hats off to you. This shows your courage and determination. But what it really displays is your patriotism!! This will greatly encourage all those people engaged in trying to bring about a change at the civil level. Change, which will also increase the level of tolerance towards our brethren belonging to different caste, race and creed.
Commendable.
Best of luck!!
Great Job ! (y)
man, you have a lot of time.. love the patriotism though
Good job done…….Ali. But on a more serious note…. v need 2 really pull things up n put our house in order now. 4 how long can v keep fighting the whole world n’ve traitors amongst us in almost all fields.
and now suddenly everyone knows what Moa is – a third rated beer which no one was aware of earlier.
Great Going!!!!! Taught the assholes a lesson!!
Gr8 Effort
Great job! The pen is mightier than the sword after all. : )
This is awesome man. Good show!
uth oye shera!!
Inspiring! Very well done.
AWESOME!
Aala.
And sorry for not being ur support, meanwhile u had to do this all alone, for us.
Great job, brilliantly done.
Hats off to your efforts.. great work !
Thanks for reminding us of our roots, which we forget most of the times
I Salute you brother!
Good going ..
Ali Kapadia, THANKS! *Hug* #respect #identity #self-esteem
I’m an Indian and ‘die hard’ cricket fan. I was appalled to see that racist ad and am glad you managed to put an end to such shenanigans.
Aala scene, kudos to you Ali
Dear Ali,
Bishhumm dishooom,……those mofos are out of here all thanks to you buddy…screw them and their weird sense of humor…btw are you interested in running for presidency in Pakistan
Somebody should remind this Indian marketing monkey about Mohammed Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja , Manoj Prabhakar, Ajay Sharma, Ali Irani the physiotherapist, Nayan Mongia and other Indian cricketers who were caught and banned for match fixing. Whereas Tuffey has proved that he is as dumb as he always looked on screen. No wonder he forgot about his buddy Chris Cairns who was banned from IPL because of the match fixing during his stint with the ICL (Indian Cricket League).
Great Bro!!! you done the right job.
Great Job ALI u r our hero
You are the man …a true Pakistani. Great job brother. . May God be with u.. .. huggzzz n kisses
Thanks Ali for taking it personally … Our incompetent PCB should have taken them to court … even if they were just referring to Pakistan Team, the spot fixing was done by ex players not the current players and was act of individuals who are no longer playing for the country. Besides many player from other countries have taken bribe for match fixing etc too so the question is why was it aimed at Pakistan particularly, It seems Mr Sunil’s clarification about being second gen Kiwi doesn’t help here.
PCB can easily take the channel and that company to court for defamation and false allegations on current team if they are not fast asleep as usual.
Even though I am not a Pakistani but definitely have respect for every individual … Really a good job … no one has the right to infringe the individual race at any cost .. good deed Ali …
Hey bro, nice work. If you’re ever in Toronto message me and I’ll take you out for a Moa beer.
Brilliant!!!!
I’m in shock! In absolute, total….I SOO WAS NOT EXPECTING SUCH AN ENDING!!! Oh-my-God!!! I don’t believe this!!!! THEY TOOK OFF THE AD??!!!!!!!! What are you?! Some sort of superhero with the power to control the mind?! I think this is the first time EVER (or that I know of) that a Pakistani (solo) has used the power of the internet to influence such a big result!! This is phenomenal!!! You should be the talk of the town!!! If only more Pakistanis would be aware of what you did, they’d have more confidence in following suit! And there are sooo many similar incidents out there which need the same kind of attention! Like the recent 9/11 colouring books for kids in the US, though that’s not really a “Pakistani” issue.
So how about you come up with something which shows our point of view (let’s act not react later on) For e.g. the fact that if we really wanted to hide him, we would have actually put him in a military base, and not next to it, the fact that the 30 or so US SEALS who took part in the raid, were killed in a copter crash in Afghanistan (how convenient…too conspiratorial?) but the main argument….WHO BENEFITED from all this? Certainly NOT Pakistan! And that is key!
Though I can’t believe you didn’t give up and kept pestering them like that! Hats off to you!!
Oh, nice documentary. Hey, maybe next time you can make something on the Samjhota Express, Ray Davis, hostages taken by pirates rescued by Pak Navy, or oh! I read that a movie on the bin Laden raid is due to come out next year. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Pakistan will be the total bad guy in it
Again, great job!
Hi Ali,
Really a admirable job. Nobody has the right to insult a nation or a race or a religion- or for that matter even a person. It is just not right. I think you have taken the right approach and acheived the justiied apology that you and all pakistanis deserved in this case.
Hi! I’m no cricket fan, and I’m not a Pakistani. And I rarely read such posts till the end. But something told me this was worth reading. Now I see why.
Our history tells us that Pakistan is probably one of our biggest enemies. Still, I’ve been lucky to have Pakistani friends and know the Pakistanis are in no way different from us. The way these guys used Pakistanis in their campaign is totally unacceptable. And you made them eat their own shit. So, to quote Hayder “You made your country proud” and you make every human being proud. Kudos to you Ali. Keep up the good work.
کمال کردیا دوست۔ تین کھلاڑیوں کو بنیاد بنا کر پوری ٹیم کو رگڑ دینا تو کہیں کا انصاف نہیں۔ آپ کے لیے ایک بار پھر شاباش!۔
admirable job well done
Great Ali bhai,
This is called, “Stand on what is Right”, and “Fight for Right”.
JazaakAllah
Hats off to you Ali! I am so proud of you me friend!!!:D
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
I only came across this today and fired off an equally miffed off email. I’m so glad you did this, well done!
Dil ki baat tum ne puri ki!
They should apologize to the Pakistani nation for denigrating our WHOLE nationality!
Well done for telling them off!!!
Well done Ali Kapadia for being a TRUE PAKISTANI
Some of the Pakistanis today would have actually argued in favor of the ad, citing freedom of speech and all their other well-rehearsed bullshit but you, sir, just made my cry khushi ke aansoo. For God and country. *salutes*
Well done bro!
Proud of you man