Haagen-Dazs bans Indians from their new store in India. | Hacker News Reader

Haagen-Dazs bans Indians from their new store in India.

blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com

48 pointsawa37 comments

After reading the article, apparently the conclusion was that a local Haagan Daz franchisee (The store had local ownership by an Indian Citizen) wants to introduce the Haagen Daz Brand in _India_, and the "International Passport" idea was there to talk up how premium the brand was.

My takeaway (from my perspective), wasn't that "Indians" were not allowed in the store (the entire _purpose_ was to get the Indian Market excited about a Brand) - the negativity is the belief that something needs to be "blessed" by the international market before it can be rolled out as a preferred brand in India.

The whole thing sort of backfired though. I'll be interested in whether this is a net positive/negative for Haagen Daz in India.

It's not hype, it's real. I have had my Korean date get pulled out of a nightclub in Vietnam because they said they don't allow locals. When we said she was not Vietnamese (she didn't even understand English, much less Vietnamese) the brown-shirts started demanding a foreign ID, which she carried with her, but the whole experience was too sickening for us to stay in and we left.

It gets ridiculous in the hospitality industry. In some fancy hotels in the middle-east, you will be harassed if you don't look sharp/rich, except if you come in wearing nothing but a towel and swimming trunks :-) I used to stay at friends' houses and everyday go swimming in the fancy 6-star hotel for free; I pushed my luck repeatedly, sometimes carrying with me water-pistols and pool toys. No problem, because no sane "arab" would be seen in speedos. The sad thing is that their pools go unused for the whole year, they're just expensive water tanks for display.

If I walked in dressed in my normal clothes, I would be harassed, asked for a foreign passport, and told to put down a credit card number .. depending on how expensive the car I came in was. But when I flash my junk and my hairy back, I get free complimentary cocktails, pool-side, uncarded.

It's not hype, it's real.

You're all over this thread, talking about how big a problem it is. Have you considered the possibility that you grossly exaggerate the issue? Maybe people are hateful racists, maybe they're just trying to make money. In the long run, greed pays the rent and racism doesn't, so you have nothing to be upset about except the timing.

Quite the contrary, I find it fun to reverse-engineer silly corporate profiling. (Gee, I just told HN how to get free pool admission :-)

It probably got to me because I have traveled extensively and came up against these little schemes left and right. Greed pays their rent, but it's not my responsibility to just accept that and let them have their way.

Someone at Haagen-Dasz is gonna see the internet echo-chamber that their homeboy in Delhi has caused, and I promise you his little sign will be down in 24 hours, and on the menu might be new flavors named after Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar gee.

Not sure whether this is appropriate for HN. But I thought since we do discuss business practices from time to time, some people might be interested.

It's very appropriate, at least now I know what brand of ice-cream to never eat again.

I spent 2 years backpacking around the world and have seen this crap sometimes; it's not an India-only thing.

>> "It's very appropriate, at least now I know what brand of ice-cream to never eat again."

There's nothing worse than the silly internet knee jerk reaction. Boycott first, ask questions later. It was a franchise. Jeez. And TBH it's up to them who they serve. Just like Hulu 'bans' non Americans.

It's a pilot franchise, their first in Delhi. Do you know how much coverage remote franchises get at the HQ? I worked for Starbucks as a lowly barista and we received photos of new baristas from every corner on earth. Corporate HQ takes the Delhi franchise very seriously. In business today, you're either in China or India. So I don't buy for a minute that the franchisee's actions are his own. It reflects on the entire brand. If they wanna do business in India they better respect the people there.

its nothing like hulu 'banning' non americans (or spotify 'banning' americans), they are both legally restricted by license holders.

I agree about the knee jerk reaction though

I don't really see why there's an issue with restricting something to tourists only. That's pretty usual. It's often not a popular thing to do, but I can see why companies do it, and I think they should have the right to decide.

Locals should also have the right to setup a competing shop that only serves locals and not tourists :/

And the fact that this was an native Indian's franchise of the brand and not a corporate action:

* Changes your opinion about it in no way, and

* Suggests nothing about whether articles like this are appropriate for HN?

I have read the article, but the noise puts pressure on HD to put the guy in check. I shot them an email with a link to my reply :-) tweeted as well.

Not appropriate. If you want to read how businesses screw people over there are an endless supply of other websites. Unless it's software or hardware related, it doesn't belong here.

It is intellectually interesting that someone would be this stupid.

Any chance this is a hoax based on a photoshopped image? "... the outlet’s franchisee ... started claiming there never was any restriction on anybody entering the outlet." Maybe they were telling the truth?

And why exactly would one of India's leading newspaper's online blog post this? And who exactly would have anything against a single HD outlet in Delhi?

Take a look at the homepage: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Crime, gossip, celebrity news. This may be a big newspaper, but it doesn't look "leading".

The Times of India is probably closer to TMZ and the National Enquirer rather than the NYTimes or the WSJ :)

Accurate as your observation may be, sadly ToI is the largest circulating English daily in the world.

I wouldn't know (to sell ads? a disgruntled former employee?). But it seems to me that an awful lot is being based on just one image here. And images are easy to fake.

I enjoy corporate-racism, specially "overseas", where their dirty secrets are usually not spotted. Here is a fun little ad by Vaseline:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rswz0sghYCw

Vaseline is a brand owned by Unilever Corporation, which says of itself: "Ever since the 19th Century when William Hesketh Lever stated that the company's mission was "to make cleanliness commonplace; to lessen work for women; to foster health and contribute to personal attractiveness, that life may be more enjoyable and rewarding for the people who use our products" -- http://www.unilever.com/aboutus/ourmission/default.aspx

It's Unilever's position that non-white skin is a problem to be dealt with in order to achieve "personal attractiveness" :-P

In Asian culture the women prefer lighter skin and see it as a sign of beauty. It's not that Unilever is saying non-white is a problem, they're just tapping into the cultural belief thats already there.

It is a sign of beauty, in the sense that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It's not unreasonable to give the customer what they want.

I'm pretty sure this is true in Australia too.

Everyone here is obsessed with being tanned.

In Africa a lighter skin is preferred.

You can say it is racist and whatnot, but then again, people in the west prefer a darker (tanned) skin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorism

In Hong Kong Haagen-Daz sells an icecream on a stick. It's packaged in a plastic wrapper inside a paper box. I bought it once and when I finally got through all the packaging the actual icecream was half the size of the box it came in! What a rip-off.

Gratuitous over-packaging in Asia is not really meant to rip you off, it's meant to make the product upscale. There's a strange subconscious feeling that anything lacking fancy wrappings is somehow worth less.

Serving sizes also tend to be much smaller in most parts of Asia, compared to America anyways. But then again, serving sizes in America tend to be much larger than most other parts of the world.

I hate unnecessary packaging of any kind. Especially when theres so much of it it becomes a struggle to get through. Unfortunately I dont think its limited to Asia.

Last year this time, A Hong Kong TV station did an investigation report on how much "chocolate" was in the store packaged Christmas chocolate presents. It was mostly wrapping.

Offensive but insidiously clever: they'll build up the hype as an exclusive, "foreigner only" location and few months later will open the floodgates to locals. The approach will ensure high profit margins for foreseeable future.

The policy has already been changed due to the local backlash.. I don't think this debacle is going to help the brand.. I for one won't ever buy it again

I wonder how people would react if folks opened a store in New York City or DC allowing only 'international' patrons, that is, tourists? I can't imagine that causing any fuss but I can imagine the opposite, opening a locals only store, might cause a stir.

(All this is ignoring the fact that both of these scenarios are illegal in the US.)

This seems to be a rather strange business decision. But, seeing as this is a franchise and is likely owned by an Indian, I have trouble getting upset by it.

LOL. Read the comments and the India/Pakistan conflict goes global over the internet.

Do they allow in people of Indian descent with non-Indian passports?

Would it be OK if they said, "special preview for those residing within a 10-block radius (must show proof of residence)"?

It's a curious choice, but I'm not sure it's a nefarious choice. Implying it's wicked and thus broadcasting it everywhere may have done them a favor -- even if some Indians now boycott the store. What if the people prone to take offense and boycott are exactly those they don't want associated with their brand?

There's definitely some real world trolling at hand here (although I don't know whether it comes from Haagen-Dazs, from the journalist, or from both of them).

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