Nutella Refuses to Make Special Jar for 5-Year-Old Named Isis
One woman’s attempt to buy her niece a personalized jar of Nutella was refused because the young girl’s name was deemed inappropriate.
A woman in Australia tried to take advantage of a recent Nutella campaign, called “Make Me Yours,” in which customers could put names on jars of the hazelnut spread. She intended to buy a few jars for her young niece. But when a department store manager learned the young girl’s name was Isis, the acronym commonly used to refer to the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, the woman was refused. In fact, the name was flagged by the store’s computer due to its sensitive nature, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
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Heather Taylor, mother of 5-year-old Isis, was outraged that her sister was forbidden to buy the gift, but the store manager simply referred her to Ferraro Australia, Nutella’s parent company. The company stood by the decision. “Like all campaigns, there needs to be consistency in the way terms and conditions are applied,” the company said in a statement provided to the Sydney Morning Herald. “Unfortunately, this has meant there have been occasions where a label has not been approved on the basis that it could have been misinterpreted by the broader community or viewed as inappropriate.”
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But Taylor says her daughter was named for the Egyptian goddess Isis. The common association between the name Isis and the extremist militant group has only emerged in the past two years, and Taylor says her daughter should not be punished for it. “I’m really quite upset by this,“ Ms Taylor told Ferrero chief executive Craig Barker when they spoke, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. "You are actually making my daughter’s name dirty. You are choosing to refuse my daughter’s name in case the public refers to it negatively.”
Taylor told the paper that she has gotten used to seeing the negative reactions when people hear her daughter’s name. “I am starting to get to the point where I don’t want to call her name out,” she said. “Because she’s going to start noticing people looking.”
(Photo: Deb Lindsey/The Washington Post/Getty Images)
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