Estonia: outrage over war-themed meat ad
An advertising campaign for meat producer Rannarootsi has sparked a fierce debate in Estonia. A photo shows two men barbecuing against a backdrop of huge clouds of smoke, with the slogan: 'The right barbecue makes bitter onions sweet'. In Estonia, 'onion' is a slang word used to refer to Russians. The national press reports on the outrage among Estonia's Russian-speaking community.
A harmful marketing gimmick
Delfi voices understanding for the strong reactions on Russian-language social media:
“War should never be used as a basis for any kind of marketing. Under any circumstances, because this causes us to lose the little humanity we have left and to forget that real people are dying on both sides – someone's children, grandchildren, spouses and loved ones. That every day, the war brings immeasurable suffering and pain to someone. War is a terrible image for advertising, not a witty metaphor, and certainly not a backdrop for shashlik.”
The Russians are not the victims here
In contrast, filmmaker Ilmar Raag writes in Postimees:
“In reality, this outrage is more an attempt to divert the conversation away from the context that dominates this advert – namely, the aggression happening in Ukraine. It's like an attempt to construct a narrative of Russian victimhood while everyone else is talking about the Russian Empire's aggression and the vast majority of Russians have so far silently supported the daily killing in Ukraine.”