by SABA IMTIAZ
PHOTO/Ayesha Mir
KARACHI: Their faces are on billboards. One carries a distinctive Louis Vuitton bag. A glamorous supermodel poses in front of them.
It is the advertisement that has sparked outrage on social media websites. Part of the campaign for Sana Safinaz’s designer lawn, the ad showing model Neha Ahmed posing in front of coolies has caused a stir online, with people calling for a boycott of the lawn because they have found the ad distasteful and exploitative.
But at Karachi’s Cantt station, the coolies featured in the advertisement are quite unaware that they’re the subject of dozens of tweets and Facebook updates.
In fact, they have no idea that they are in a lawn advertisement.
Three of the coolies who feature in the Sana Safinaz lawn campaign had no idea it was an advertisement for fabric. “We were told it was for a drama serial,” says Mohammad Ilyas, a coolie from Gujrat.
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