madcomments

I’m not sure what’s worse - the fact that people are too prudish to even understand this ad or the fact that they are offended by something that the UK government has officially made legal by allowing gay marriages.
Ads have become more sophisticated, more representative of the social climate, more modern and more entertaining - but it’s also having to abide by a host of rules and regulations that make it hard for advertisers to create stand-out. What are their options now? It seems to me almost impossible to say or do anything without offending anyone!

To say the advert is inappropriate is to say that being gay is inappropriate - the fact of the matter is that the advert was withdrawn for homophobic reasons; if the ASA supports this then my faith in the ASA to make sensible deicsions will have been seriously dented.

Apparently some Daily Mail readers were concerned about having to explain same-sex relationships to their young children. It’s time children grew up from a very young age in the knowledge that same and opposite sex relationships are both equally normal. Children are still being brought up in a largely homophobic environment - perpetuated not only in schools but sadly by the church as well. I was originally proud of Heinz for their bravery in screening this ad. Their subsequent behaviour has left me wondering whether the whole thing wasn’t orchestrated to gain attention…

The ad was clearly meant to be provocative in a sit-up-and-take-notice way. The clients clearly lost their nerve when it became sit-up-and-take-offence. Did they not imagine that this might happen, and do the thinking beforehand? In fact, isn’t that difference (notice/offence) the point? Duh!

I’d be surprised if the ASA find any complaints worth upholding/investigating here.

From a corporate point of view I can imagine Heinz asking itself at the beginning of the week, does it upset conservative middle England or the gay community?

I guess it opted for those likely to have the bigger family meals.

shortt01 - can’t imagine any company wishing to stir up this hornet’s nest - it’s a lose, lose for Heinz, whichever way you look at it, and it’s not as the company can’t afford to gain attention through advertising alone.

In response to shortt01’s comment:

Same and opposite sex relationships are clearly not equally normal. The way our bodies are designed couldn’t make this point more obvious!

As regards the usual misinformation about the teaching of the church. The church teaches to love the sinner but hate the sin. This does not equate to homophobia.

As to the ad … whoever approved this ad at Heinz should be fired for sheer stupidity. It’s clearly offensive to the millions of people who understand this behaviour to be wrong - and thus detrimental to their family brand.

I found it funny. And it’s not “two men kissing”, it’s an affectionate peck on the way out the door at the end of a skit about role-playing. Again, much ado about nothing.

‘Common sense’ is usually a shorthand for “can’t be bothered to look at this issue from every angle, and really think it through, so let’s just be mindlessly reactionary”, so I’m not surprised by such comments by someone who calls themselves Common Sense Corner. If “millions of people… understand this… to be wrong” (which I don’t believe for a second), then all that proves is that the Daily Mail’s sales figures aren’t lies after all. Millions of people ‘understood’ the earth to be flat at one time - does that mean they were right??

Mr/Ms (hoho) Common Sense Corner misses the whole point anyway (the bigoted and narrow-minded usually do). The ad substitutes ‘New York Deli Man’ for ‘Mum’ in a slightly surreal way, and isn’t suggesting that the family shown actually consists of English Dad, English Kids… and Dad’s-Lover-Mysteriously-Transported-From-New-York-Deli-Complete-With-Deli-Uniform. It’s trying to be ‘unexpected’ and surreal…. do you finally get it now???

I doubt that Heinz the company is homaphobic, i think that this is more a sad reflection of how britain would react to the advert.

You can’t hold it against a company for that.

I’m sure Heinz doesn’t count homophobia as one of it’s core values however by pulling the advert on homophobic grounds it sends out this very message.

The worst thing is this now represents a block in the road for more innovative advertising of this kind - still, it’s very strange how FCUK never pulled their advert with two women ripping one anothers clothes off though…

common sense - thousands of people find lots of things to be wrong. Does that mean advertisers should always try and please everyone in the whole world? Dare to be different.

Okay, not one, but two PR disasters here.

Heinz made the first by pulling the ad. This, of course, was based on a history in the US where massive conglomerates have had to face the wroth of the Southern Baptists every time the word Gay is even mentioned.

Number two was by the gay rights lobby who have made themselves look like complete idiots by trying to boycott baked beans.

Advertisers do need to be sympathetic to their audience (and their clients) but that means dealing with complaints sensibly. If they run a highly disturbing ad, or one that obviously kicks at one section of a society or another, then fine - pull it and apologise. Where they are essentially cracking a joke, then they should explain, politely, to the bake bean buying public.

But then, since when have most PR companies understood the notion of “proportionality?”

I think perhaps Heinz pulling the ad does not prove them to be homophobic, just concerned that it caused upset. Surely they are just responding to consumers and it has nothing to do with how they as a company feel about gay people.

A homophobic company would never put up an ad with men kissing in it, let’s be honest.

“middle England” are too stupid to have an opinion… Isn’t it obvious that the ad is in no way a gay issue. The couple aren’t gay at all. The “mother” being played by a man is just a device to illustrate a point (that new York Deli style sandwiches are available in the most mundane, suburban household). He is even refered to as “mum” by one of the kids (I suspect there isn’t a gay couple in the world who raise a child to call one of them mum rather than both being “dad”). The script is written for a standard mum, dad, 2 kids, set up - and that’s the joke in the substitution of a woman for a man.

What I love about this odious story is the clear message that brands no longer have the luxury of sitting back and viewing life as something they can withdraw from by pulling their ads. That ignominious exit beams out a message too, not a message anyone has the degree of control over that they would like to believe. You’re either in the game of modern commerce or you aren’t. If you’re in, you can’t afford to think of it as something you watch through a research group mirror. There can’t be a creative reading this who hasn’t lost a valuable ad to a focus-group loony. We need to learn to ignore the fringe view, not regard it as the get-out clause from an exceptional piece of advertising.

On Wednesday, the advertising watchdog, ASA, reported it couldn’t find anything “offensive” or “unsuitable for children” within the ad and had no qualms in dismissing all 200 plus complaints without any further investigation.

Earlier in the week, it emerged that The American Family Association, a powerful Christian group in the US, had been among those lobbying Heinz to remove the ad. The group emailed all of its members to warn them about the “push for homosexual marriage by Heinz”.

Imagine what their reaction would’ve been if the ad had actually aired in America.

It’s worth noting the ASA went on to say that if the ad had been aired around children’s programmes (which for HFSS regulatory reasons it wasn’t), it still wouldn’t have had a problem with it.

This additional comment was certainly going above and beyond what the watchdog was required to say, and is probably as close as the organisation can ever come to making a political point.