VIRAL VIDEO: Helen Keller sunglasses commercial video under fire for misleading and copyrights.



A Chinese company has grabbed international headlines by naming a line of sunglasses after Deaf-Blind activist Helen Keller.



Is it a smart thing to try and profit off of someone else’s tragedy? One company seems to think so. A Chinese fashion firm, Xiamen Jinzhi, has named a line of its sunglasses Helen Keller.

This is no marketing mistake, or lost in translation. A spokesman for the company, Chen Wenjing, told the Wall Street Journal, they were well aware Keller was blind, but saw merchandising value in her “philanthropist spirit.”



It appears Helen Keller is a famous figure Chinese children learn about in school, according to the article. But maybe the fashion company’s marketing team didn’t pay attention when the course was taught.



On the company’s Helen Keller sunglasses website, someone seems to have picked up a reference about Helen Keller from Wikipedia, “Helen Keller: She was the first Deaf-Blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.” Read more: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/24/11370286-helen-keller-sunglasses-create-a-stir