Church Chips outrage in Italy

A 30 second advert for Italian crisp brand ‘Amica Chips’ which was filmed in a church has been deemed blasphemous.

The association of Catholic television viewers asked Aiart (the Italian Television Broadcasters Association) to block it. According to the association, the video, “offends the religious sensibility of millions of practising Catholics”. In a press release published on its official website, Aiart then lodged a protest against the commercial made by Amica Chips.

What caused the controversy was not the version of the commercial that aired on TV, but rather the one on social media, posted on the company’s YouTube and Instagram channel.

Amica Chips the daily divine

The disputed advertisement shows a group of novice nuns, (with Schubert’s Ave Maria playing in the background), making their way to the altar of a convent church to receive communion. Instead of the host, however, one of the nuns has replaced them with crisps, which the priest distributes to the novices. Meanwhile, the same nun who swapped the host for chips eats them straight from the bag. The commercial is then accompanied by the slogan ‘Amica Chips the daily divine’.

Shortly after the Aiart protest the ad was censored on social media and the company resorted to the television version where the comparison between the crisp and the host is not so blatant. Since then however, Amica Chips has decided to remove it completely, although not before getting even more publicity than they could have imagined.

Photo: Screenshot, YouTube