Was anyone else left feeling a bit uncomfortable with all the moaning about the baby being the wrong colour, or the family 'not looking right together'.

Mixed race families are very common nowadays. I was surprised when several of the young apprentices found it unacceptable for the packaging or hilarious to have a mother and daughter of different skin tones. Then I was surprised again when Lord Sugar pitched in saying "Is the child adopted?".

I'm not one of these people who deplores the lack of, say, disabled models in ad campaigns, but it's bizarre to act like a mixed race family is so unusual or even completely impossible.

I agree. Was watching with my mum and we were both expecting Lord Sir Alan to say something in the boardroom and tell the girls who were laughing they were wrong, but he agreed with them.

There was a programme on BBC2 only a couple of weeks ago about mixed race twins born where one was white and one black.

Thank God it's not just me. Todays review of the show in the Telegraph said "First, in an act of staggering idiocy, Zara decided to cast a black mother and white baby for the girls’ advert."

Staggering idiocy? Really?

A black woman rarely will have a white baby and one with blonde hair at that. Marketing should have mass appeal not niche. So i kinda agree with them. If it had benn a proper mixed race family i would have no issues.

More than one mixed race couple have twins of the same sex but with differently coloured skin and in fact British couple have accomplished this twice.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...cle2082429.ece

So if the white mother in this article participated in an advert with her black daughter - or the black father appeared in with his white daughter - why would that hilarious?

On the contrary perhaps it might lead to better understanding of racial integration.

My nephew and niece (mixed race twins) are a case in point Ignazio. He has coffee coloured skin, but she looks like a porcelain doll. You'd never guess they had the same parents from their skin tones.

I found Gbemi and co laughing their heads off at Zara incredibly rude, and I thought the point about the colour of the baby was laboured too much by all concerned on last night's episode.

Yes, I thought it was a rather old fashioned view & it made me uncomfortable.

What was surprising was that none of the Young Apprentices spoke out much about it being OK; I find that young people are generally a lot more tolerant about mixed race situations than older people.

OK, in terms of mass market appeal, it would be more usual to have a "conventional" (for want of a better word) family, but I don't think it would have put anyone off buying the product.It really wasn't the big deal they made out.

Personally, I would also have laughed my head off.

To me, as someone of mixed race, it came across like Zara and her girls did not understand that it would look silly ("oh, a pale baby and a black mother, this is not strange at all, happens all the time").

The adoptive route is a bit farfetched, especially since adverts and photo's should be clear straight ahead (an unclear marketing campaign is full of fail).

I agree with this.
The photograph was good and it was quite a good idea to put the focus on the product appealing to everyone of every creed and colour.
The product was a bit rubbish though.
Go to pick babe up for a cuddle, no wait I just have to put on my Comfy Curve armband sling and fix the velcro properly first, Everytime?
Alternatively, how does a woman fit a big blue hippo bottle warmer into her bag?
But hey these apprentice candidates are kids and I think they all did well considering.

A 'proper' mixed race family? A family isn't 'proper' unless they've all got the right skin tones? And someone else posting here says they looked 'silly'. I thought they looked beautiful. Nothing 'silly' about them.

I would have loved somethign like this to happen.

Lord Sugar: "Is the child adopted?"
Zara: Would it be a problem if it was?

Plus Zara is really hot.

I'm glad Im not the only one felt this way !
I could possibly see where they were coming from when the 'Dad was included in the shot but as just mum and baby - altho possibly not common its certainly not unsual.

I found the fact that the apprentice girl who chose the baby (dont know her name sorry) actually said they chose the baby as it was the only one who was in the right target age which to me was justifiable in itself

Whilst its possible for a mixed race child to be so pale, its going to be very, very rare.
Surely the point about an advert is to appeal to the target audience? It just looked incongruous and distracted from the product.

So a better way to hit the target audience would have been to choose one of other other babies, none of whom were the right age?

When Sir Alan said 'is the child adopted'

I thought 'Why not?'

I thought she'd be credited for being innovative. But Sugar is too old school.

And I bet they're gorgeous.

xxx

The baby market is so over-crowded with products, and it's been the subject of Apprentice tasks in the past. It was always going to be hard to produce something original. I thought the teams did well in the limited time frame, but as you say, the products weren't that practical really.


lol

There's a maturity and poise about Zara that I like.


Of course, they take after their uncle

X

Zara's original reason was that it was the only baby who wasn't difficult to handle in the shots, she changed her argument in the boardroom.

We didn't get to see all the discussion over the different babies. None of the others being the right age may have come up later, and been the clinching argument.

I may have missed something though - was the black model the only one available to play the mum?
If baby Amy Pond was the only suitable one for the shoot then surely changing the mum would have been sensible.

I think the deal was that if you want the baby then you get that baby's mum to play its mum. Bit traumatic to have a stranger holding the baby.

well that can't be right can it? the colour wouldn't be an issue then.

But the baby should have atleast have had a slight tan and black hair, how can you have a black mother and a father with black hair and end up blonde and pale?

My little brother and I had very light hair when we were todlers, now we both have dark hair like our parents.

And how do you explain the pale skin?