Over the years, some of the biggest brands have found themselves at the center of controversy after advertisements and marketing campaigns left consumers asking one simple question: What were they thinking?! These offensive ads ranged from imagery that critics said evoked racist stereotypes to campaigns accused of reinforcing harmful ideas about race, beauty and identity; these moments have sparked major conversations about accountability, cultural awareness and who gets a seat at the table when advertisements are created and approved.
The issue is especially significant when it comes to Black consumers, who collectively represent an estimated $1.6 trillion to $2 trillion in spending power, with that figure projected to reach approximately $2.2 trillion by the end of 2026, according to Black Wall Street.
And while some companies have apologized and pulled controversial campaigns, others have defended their creative decisions or offered explanations that left consumers wanting more accountability.
Here are some of the brands that found themselves under fire over the years due to their offensive ads.
1. Converse
Source: Converse / Converse.
One of the most recent controversies involves Converse, which came under fire in September 2026 after an advertisement sparked accusations that its imagery resembled Ku Klux Klan symbolism and lynching imagery.
The campaign featured K-pop star Karina wearing a white skirt-like garment while holding a pair of black Converse sneakers at her side, according to NBC News. Critics argued that the lighting created a pointed shape resembling a KKK hood, while the positioning of the shoes appeared to evoke the image of someone being hanged.
The backlash quickly spread online, prompting Converse to remove the advertisement.
The company did apologize, acknowledging the impact the image had on viewers.
“We’re sorry. We understand why this image is deeply upsetting and recognize that we got this wrong,” Converse, which is owned by Nike Inc., said in a statement to ABC News on Sept. 21. “We removed it from our channels and are working to remove it everywhere it appeared. This should not have happened and we will do better.”
But the apology did not satisfy everyone.
Civil rights attorney and activist Lee Merritt criticized the company for what he described as a failure that should have been caught before the campaign was released.
“A Converse ad shows a woman wearing white attire lit to form what looks like a KKK hood. Sneakers dangling beside her, read by many as lynching imagery,” he wrote.
“This wasn’t hidden. It was styled, lit, and approved by a creative team. Someone signed off on this. Converse says sorry. The image was still up hours later. An apology doesn’t undo what got past legal, marketing, and leadership at every step. We keep having this conversation because corporations keep failing the same test. Do better means catching this before it airs — not after we’re offended.”
Converse has since removed the advertisement.
2. Mielle Organics
Mielle Organics, a Black-founded beauty brand, also faced backlash in 2026 after an advertisement for its Rosemary Mint collection sparked accusations of texturism.
The controversy centered around a before-and-after image of a Black woman with natural hair. In the “before” image, the woman’s hair was described as “weak & dull,” while the “after” image presented more elongated and defined hair alongside the words “shiny & strong.”
Although the advertisement appeared intended to highlight the effects of the product, some consumers felt the messaging suggested that tightly coiled or less-defined natural hair was something that needed to be corrected.
The criticism quickly spread across social media, with many Black consumers expressing frustration over the imagery and the message they believed it communicated.
Mielle ultimately apologized and said the advertisement did not “reflect how Mielle sees or celebrates textured hair.” The company also explained that the image had “been rejected during their review process but somehow “made its way live.”
The apology acknowledged the controversy, but it did little to quiet the conversation surrounding texturism and representation in the beauty industry.
3. Target
Target found itself facing similar criticism in August 2026 after pulling a children’s Halloween costume that critics said resembled racist caricatures associated with blackface and Jim Crow-era minstrel shows.
The costume, called the “Kids’ Glows under Blacklight Circus Clown Halloween Costume Bodysuit,” featured an orange-and-black design, gloves, a small top hat and a face covering with an exaggerated, wide-toothed smile.
The controversy intensified after promotional imagery showed a Black child wearing the costume. Critics argued that the combination of the costume’s design and the model’s appearance evoked historical racist imagery.
Actress Viola Davis also called out the company on Aug. 25, writing on Instagram:
“Target, I do not accept your apology, and I do not believe that you understand the impact… the pain… the dehumanization of the above. These images laid the foundation and the ideology for every atrocity that has been committed against my people. We MATTER!! You have shown us that you are not on OUR side.”
Target responded by removing the costume from its stores and website and issuing an apology.
“An apology from us: We removed an offensive Halloween costume that should never have been part of our assortment. It is no longer for sale,” Target said in a statement shared on Aug. 24.
“As a company, we got this wrong, and we are deeply sorry. We know this is especially hurtful for our Black guests, team members and partners. Removing the costume is an important first step, and we are looking closely at how this happened and what needs to change to ensure this won’t happen again.”
4. American Eagle
American Eagle sparked another major advertising debate in 2025 with its campaign starring actress Sydney Sweeney.
The campaign, titled “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” relied heavily on a play between the words “jeans” and “genes.” In one of the advertisements, Sweeney discussed inherited traits such as hair and eye color before the campaign shifted the focus back to denim.
While American Eagle appeared to be using the wordplay as a clever way to promote its jeans, critics argued that the campaign’s emphasis on Sweeney’s blonde hair, blue eyes and genetics could be interpreted as invoking eugenic ideas and racial superiority.
The controversy quickly became a major online conversation.
American Eagle did not issue the kind of apology some critics were looking for. Instead, the company defended the campaign and said it was about denim.
“Her jeans. Her story,” the company responded in part, according to the Associated Press. “We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”
5. H&M
H&M found itself in one of the most infamous fashion advertising controversies of the past decade in 2018.
The Swedish retailer featured a Black child wearing a hoodie that read “Coolest Monkey In The Jungle.” The image immediately sparked outrage because of the long history of comparing Black people to monkeys as a racist insult.
The controversy was intensified by another image from the same product line featuring a white child wearing a hoodie that said “Official survival expert.”
The advertisement was removed, and H&M apologized amid the international backlash.
The controversy also raised broader questions about diversity within the fashion company’s creative and decision-making processes and whether more diverse perspectives could have prevented the advertisement from being approved in the first place.
6. Dove
Dove faced its own racial controversy in 2017 after a 3-second advertisement shared to the company’s Facebook page appeared to show a Black woman removing her shirt and transforming into a white woman.
The advertisement was widely criticized because viewers interpreted the sequence as suggesting that the Black model was somehow unclean and needed to be cleansed by transforming into the white model using Dove.
“Dove is committed to representing the beauty of diversity. In an image we posted this week, we missed the mark in thoughtfully representing women of color and we deeply regret the offense that it has caused. The feedback that has been shared is important to us and we’ll use it to guide us in the future,” their statement read.
The company quickly removed the ad from its social media platforms. The incident became another example of how even a seemingly simple beauty advertisement can carry a much deeper message when race and representation are involved.
7. Urban Outfitters
Source: Mike Kemp / Getty
Urban Outfitters faced backlash in 2017 after customers noticed something unusual — and offensive — in the color options for one of the retailer’s T-shirts. The company’s website listed “Obama/Black” as a color option.
Urban Outfitters said the wording was the result of a website error involving internally developed color names. The company explained that one color had been called “Obama Blue,” while another was “Black,” and the database combined the two descriptions.
In a statement obtained by HuffPost, Urban Outfitters explained it was an error and apologized. The company said:
“Many customers have brought to our attention one of the color names listed for our BDG Burnout Henley, and rightfully so. We screwed up, and are sincerely sorry. The burnout pattern on this shirt is comprised of two colors – one is an internally developed color we called “Obama Blue,” and the other is ‘Black’. Unfortunately our website database truncated this combination to read ‘Obama/Black.’ We should have caught the error, and apologize for offending anyone.”
While the company attributed the wording to a technical mistake, the incident demonstrated how something as seemingly minor as a product description can become a major public-relations problem when proper review processes fail.
8. Balenciaga
Balenciaga faced intense backlash in 2022 after two controversial advertising campaigns featured imagery that critics considered inappropriate and disturbing.
One campaign featured children holding teddy bear handbags dressed in bondage-inspired accessories, including harnesses and collars. Another campaign drew criticism because of documents visible in the background that referenced a Supreme Court case involving child pornography.
The backlash was enormous, prompting Balenciaga to remove the campaigns and apologize for what it described as “grievous errors.”
The luxury fashion house later filed a $25 million lawsuit against North Six, the production company involved in one of the shoots, according to reports at the time. Balenciaga maintained that it did not have creative control over the shoot’s set design and said North Six was responsible for production logistics.
The controversy ultimately became a much larger discussion about corporate oversight, responsibility and who should be held accountable when an advertising campaign crosses a line.
9. Burger King
Burger King found itself at the center of a racial controversy in 2012 after releasing a commercial featuring Mary J. Blige promoting the fast-food chain’s crispy chicken snack wraps.
In the commercial, Blige sang enthusiastically about the ingredients:
“Crispy chicken, fresh lettuce, three cheeses, ranch dressing, wrapped up in a tasty, flour tortilla.”
While the commercial was intended to be humorous and energetic, critics argued that placing a Black woman in a commercial singing about chicken played into harmful racial stereotypes.
Burger King pulled the commercial and apologized, explaining that an unfinished version of the advertisement had been released prematurely.
Blige also expressed regret over the controversy and explained that she believed she was filming more of a conceptual dream sequence rather than simply singing about chicken.
Looking back on the embarrassing ad during an interview with Scott Evans in April 2026, Blige said she still deeply regrets being involved in the ad and doesn’t find it funny, even until this day.
“I would never laugh at that. Because my true, honest fans did not think that s*** was funny. The whole way that s*** went down was wrong.”
She added, “The way they shot it was wrong. It was set up to make exactly what happened in the press happen like that. It’s still not a laughing matter to me because I was deeply, deeply affected. Now, I learned a lot from it, but its not fu**king funny. I was like a disease to people. Nobody wanted to be affiliated.”
10. Heineken
Heineken also faced criticism in 2018 after releasing an advertisement for its light beer that featured a bartender sliding a bottle past several darker-skinned people before it landed in front of a lighter-skinned woman.
The tagline appeared on screen:
“Sometimes, lighter is better.”
The wording immediately sparked accusations of racial overtones because of the contrast between the darker-skinned people and the lighter-skinned woman.
The controversy grew after rapper Chance the Rapper called the advertisement “terribly racist,” according to AdWeek.
Heineken ultimately pulled the advertisement and apologized, saying its creative team had “missed the mark.”
11. Heinz
In 2024, Heinz faced criticism over an oversized billboard depicting a wedding scene in which a Black bride is shown gleefully eating a forkful of sauce-covered pasta while her white groom looks on. The image also features two older white people, presumably the groom’s parents—his [horrified] mother and father. The only other person pictured is an older Black woman, who viewers could reasonably assume is the bride’s mother. Notably, however, there is no Black father depicted.
Following the backlash, Heinz issued an apology to The Independent, stating:
“We always appreciate members of the public’s perspective on our campaigns. We understand how this ad could have unintentionally perpetuated negative stereotypes. We extend our deepest apologies and will continue to listen, learn, and improve to avoid this happening again in the future.”
When Marketing Goes Wrong.
While these controversies happened in different years and involved very different products, they all raise a similar question: Who is in the room when these advertisements are created, reviewed and approved?
An advertisement may be intended to be edgy, funny, artistic or attention-grabbing, but the intention behind a campaign does not necessarily determine how consumers will experience it.
For Black consumers in particular, representation matters because advertising doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Images can carry historical and cultural associations that companies may overlook during the creative process.
Some brands have responded by apologizing and pulling the offending advertisements. Others have defended their campaigns or blamed production mistakes. And in several cases, the controversy has continued long after the original advertisement disappeared.
Ultimately, the question isn’t simply whether a brand can apologize after getting it wrong. It’s whether companies can build better review processes, bring different perspectives into the creative room and recognize potentially harmful messaging before an advertisement reaches millions of consumers.
Because once the ad is out there, the damage to a brand’s reputation — and the conversation surrounding the people represented in that ad — can be much harder to erase.
