Lolly Shop With Golliwog Logo Found Guilty Of Vilification In TV Commercial

A television commercial for a confectionary store in regional Victoria, Australia, has been deemed in breach of advertising standards because it featured an offensive golliwog.

The Advertising Standards Board (ASB), the organisation tasked with investigating breaches of advertising standards in Australia, has found a television commercial for confectionery store Beechworth Sweet Co. guilty of discrimination and vilification.

The ASB investigated the commercial after receiving a complaint from an anonymous offended viewer.

"I found this commercial to be offensive due to the depiction of a golliwog. It shocked me deeply, this is a racist symbol!" the complaint reads.

"In 2016, the image of a golliwog on television is completely inexcusable. I truly believe casual racism like this is so damaging to the community and this commercial should never be aired again."

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Golliwogs, now known as gollies, are black dolls characterised by their frizzy hair and large lips and have long been long considered racist caricatures of black slaves and people of colour. They are widely reviled as a relic of the past.

The owners of the store told the ASB that they'd been using the golliwog on their logo since 1992 and it was a reference to "popular toys at the beginning of the 20th century".

The ads "represent gollies as part of happy childhood memories in a tasteful respectful way", the advertiser said.

But the ASB did not see things that way.

"The majority of the Board acknowledged the innocence behind the nostalgia associated with the doll but considered that community standards have evolved significantly over the past fifty years and most members of the community would be aware of the racist symbolism of golly dolls," the board wrote in its findings.

In response to the decision, Beechworth Sweet Co. has suspended the ads.

"It has never been our intention to be racist. The intent of this advertisement has always been to share our love of sweets," the advertiser said.