Update: Forbes reports that Pop Chips ran this same campaign in the UK before launching in that market. The British reaction to it was exactly the same and the spot was pulled after public outcry. "The reasoning seems to come straight from Oscar Wilde and P.T. Barnum (if he actually said “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”)," says Forbes. Wonder if that's the advice Ashton is giving his startups. 

Correction: Just kidding, Pop Chips PR representatives just confirmed to Betabeat that the Forbes report was wrong. The ad went was only released in the U.S. market. The Forbes blogger read the dates wrong, as well as the country. And yes, as you suspected, no one is going to come out of this looking good. Including bloggers!

Yesterday, Pop Chips unveiled its latest advertising campaign. It involved having spokesman Ashton Kutcher play a variety of characters, including an Indian immigrant named "Raj," for which Mr. Kutcher painted his face brown and affected an over-the-top accent. Last night, shortly after Anil Dash pointed out that using brownface to hawk bags of potato chips in 2012 was a sign of ingrained racism--and criminally cheeseball--Pop Chips founder and CEO Keith Belling issued an apology on the company blog.

"our team worked hard to create a light-hearted parody featuring a variety of characters that was meant to provide a few laughs," Mr. Belling wrote in all-lower case. "we did not intend to offend anyone. i take full responsibility and apologize to anyone we offended."

Mr. Dash thoughtfully provided some helpful guidelines for fixing the bonehead move, including not taking the video down and offering an explanation of how the creative process failed so others could learn from their missteps. Mr. Belling apparently thought it would safer to make all the videos related to the campaign private.

The controversy made its way to TMZ this morning, but despite all the fervor, Mr. Kutcher has yet to respond. We reached out to Mr. Kutcher's publicist earlier today and will update this post as soon as we hear back. As we reported last night, Mr. Kutcher's carefree links to YouTube videos of the commercials are still up on his Twitter page.

Mr. Belling elaborated a little in his response to TMZ:

"The new Popchips worldwide dating video and ad campaign featuring four characters was created to provoke a few laughs and was never intended to stereotype or offend anyone. At Popchips we embrace all types of shapes, flavors and colors, and appreciate all snackers, no matter their race or ethnicity. We hope people can enjoy this in the spirit it was intended."

The rap group Das Racist also had some choice words for Mr. Kutcher yesterday, along with the New York Times coverage of the campaign:

Both Mr. Dash and Das Racist continue to deal with negative response to their criticism on Twitter, including a death threat to Mr. Dash. The other cone of silence in the aftermath of the campaign comes from the scads of startups Mr. Kutcher has invested in:

Hey, startups that are helping @aplusk get richer, can you tell him that racist brownface ads aren't cool? Thanks! 2.dashes.com/IUMYZM

— Anil Dash (@anildash) May 2, 2012

Something tells us not to hold our breath.

Mr. Kutcher

Prolific tech investor Ashton Kutcher made a major flub in his new advertising campaign for Pop Chips out today, although you wouldn't know it by reading the industry press. Thankfully, Anil Dash was there to call it like he sees it, as Mr. Dash is wont to do. In the campaign, Mr. Kutcher, who was named Pop Chips "president of pop culture" in 2010, plays four different characters in a series of spots made to look like dating videos. For the Indian character named Raj, Mr. Kutcher is painted up in brownface and speaks in a caricature of an Indian accent.

"Don't watch it," Mr. Dash writes in a blogpost condemning the ad. "It's a hackneyed, unfunny advertisement featuring Kutcher in brownface talking about his romantic options, with the entire punchline being that he's doing it in a fake-Indian outfit and voice. That's it, there's seriously no other gag."

via The New York Times

Don't see the harm in it? Here, let Mr. Dash break it down for you.

"I can't imagine I have to explain this to anyone in 2012, but if you find yourself putting brown makeup on a white person in 2012 so they can do a bad "funny" accent in order to sell potato chips, you are on the wrong course. Make some different decisions."

Shortly after Mr. Dash published his screed, the YouTube video for the commercial became private, as did the videos of the other characters. Earlier, Stuart Elliot of the New York Times described the characters as such, "Darl, a diva; Nigel, a hippie; Raj, an optimist who is Indian; and Swordfish, a sweet biker." Apparently, the Darl spot was clueless as well.

Mr. Kutcher, who has been happily tweeting out links to the spots, has yet to delete any of the tweets or respond to criticism of the campaign. But making the video private is ironic, because one of Mr. Dash's many suggestions for how Pop Chips could be better is by not pulling the ad down and offering an explanation about how the process failed instead. You can check out the rest of his advice for a company that finds itself in the middle of a very public faux pas on his blog.

In the meantime, Betabeat is starting to wonder if there's a "Real Talk with Anil Dash" web series in the works that nobody told us about.