Kit Kat mascot pulled after resembling the pedophile Pedobear mascot
Nestle has been forced to take down an image from its Kit Kat Facebook fan page, after it emerged that it was similar to an icon used to ward off paedophiles.
Kit Kat bear
The picture of the nut brown-coloured bear was used briefly to promote Kit Kat Bars on the Facebook page of the Nestle-owned chocolate bar. The company said it had no idea that the image matched that of “Pedobear” – considered visual shorthand on the internet for sites posting material with inappropriate overtones towards minors.
“Drum roll please … Kit Kat is on Instagram,” the company wrote above an Instagram photo of the brown bear at a drum set yesterday, with two Kit Kat chocolate bars in its paws in the place of drumsticks.
Nestle Australia & New Zealand confirmed that it had produced the image but denied any knowledge of the paedophile-linked Pedobear.
Nestle Australia & New Zealand confirmed that it had produced the image but denied any knowledge of the paedophile-linked Pedobear.
“We produced this photo – of a real guy in a bear suit – to launch Instagram through our Facebook community,” a spokeswoman for the company said. “The picture is not Pedobear.”
“We had never heard of Pedobear,” she said. “But when the possibility of its similarity to the so-called ‘Pedobear’ was raised with us, we immediately removed it.”
The so-called “mascot of paedophilia” has become an internet meme and shorthand for ‘Stop being creepy about kids.’
There is a history of the Pedobear finding itself way into advertisements, catching the companies off guard.
An iPhone app containing the bear was removed from Apple’s online store in 2011 only weeks after its release.
In 2010, police in California rushed to issue a warning after a person appeared at an event dressed in the costume.
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