Brooklyn residents are speaking out against what they call “blackface in a bottle” water bottle design created by a Sons of Anarchy star who says he wants the urban community to drink more water.
New York Daily News reports that SOA star Theo Rossi and his wife Meghan are the founders of Ounce Water and in a “hip-hop-influenced” marketing campaign designed the bottles to look like 40 oz of malt liquor. Community activists are calling foul on the design shape and a marketing plan that is patterned after a product killing the black community.
Theo Rossi and his wife Meghan, is trying to reach urban communities by selling the drinking water with the tagline “Get Ounced!” and a hip-hop-influenced marketing campaign.
Once the bottle made its debut in Canarsie’s Food World Market, Community activists from the group Breukelen RISE penned a letter to the company expressing disappointment in the product.
“In a community that has been ravaged by alcohol and drugs, we are confused as to why someone would create a product that so closely resembles a malt liquor bottle,” members of the activist group Breukelen RISE said in a letter to the company. “We cannot get behind this product staying on the shelves in our community.”
Store owners ultimately removed the product after complaints from local residents and proposed action to boycott the store if the product wasn’t removed.
Just when you think a company can’t “out tone deaf” the last one, along comes another company with an idea to design water bottles like 40 oz bottles and put them in the hood corner store to encourage young black and brown kids to drink more water. Then bring the idea to fruition.
To see the ridiculous water bottles, flip the page.