Senegalese model featured on Lidl ad in Czech Republic hired by company importing mobile phones

The Lion Mobile company's latest advertising campaign in the Czech Republic features Senegalese model Alpha Dia, whose image in a flier for the Lidl retail chain sparked many racist commentaries on Faceboook. Lion Mobile imports Xiaomi telephones to the Czech Republic.

Dia is now the main face of the company's advertising. News server MoneyMag.cz has reported that racist reactions to the model are increasing.

"The posters were publicized just a couple of hours ago and many Czechs are once again expressing online the fact that they find the image offensive," MoneyMag.cz reported on Friday, 3 February. Some of the commentaries are comparable to those that appeared at the beginning of January on Lidl's Facebook profile.

"It's not a good idea today to put a monkey in an advertisement, an evidently targeted provocation that brings results, though, because even negative advertising is advertising... . I like Xiaomi telephones, I will not hypocritically write here that I will stop using mine, but I don't like this," a Facebook user under the name David Kčmář has posted to the company's Facebook page.

Just as with the scandal of the Lidl flier, though, most of the commentaries are positive and ridicule the racist ones. "How big of an impact this campaign copied from the Lidl company will have is the question right now," MoneyMag.cz opines.