A headline like that just begs for a writeup by the Eclectic Hedonist.
The story is that Heinz in Britain pulled an ad for mayonnaise showing two men kissing after hundreds of people complained. Now, if the story had ended there with much consternation from Fox News, Focus on the Family, ABC, NBC, CBS, and so on, then you would be right to think you’re in America and that this is just business as usual. It’s standard procedure #3 in ad writing manuals everywhere:
1) Write an ad for shock value
2) Publish it.
3) People are shocked, appalled, the news media runs a prime-time expose on it featuring prominent voices in the evangelical Christian Community denouncing the ad as heralding the fall of society.
4) Sales of the product triple briefly on millions of dollars worth of unpaid advertising donated by the anchors looking for time to fill.
5) Pull the ad with an abject apology to viewers. Possibly fire a mail-room worker or demote a middle manager.
6) PROFIT
7) Get picketed by Fred Phelps and co. a day late and a dollar short for their time.
America. Home of the Brave. However this story is happened in the UK, and at some point after Step 5, Parliament stepped in and did something extraordinary, that no politician in the US worth his or her salt would put their name to. They issued a statement asking Heinz to reinstate the ad, saying that the anti-gay lobby could “get a life” (exactly the MP’s words on the BBC Newshour this morning), and that Parliament and the British Government didn’t want to see anyone cower from portraying relationships that are (also his words) “perfectly legal, perfectly well accepted by the majority of the population, and perfectly common.”
Well, Mr. Dobson, it’s nice to know you don’t win everywhere. Go ahead, write a strongly worded letter.
Up to a point the 7 steps worked however they fall down from point 4 on. Which for Heinz look like:
4) Sales of the drop slightly as the evangelicals boycott your product out of protest.
5) Pull the ad with an abject apology to viewers. Only for the liberals, pink and/or gay friendly and aware section of the population to pull aware from such an illiberal step of kow-towing to homophobes over a simple peck, which is so innaucous many wonder was it a gay kiss or some dream sequence.
6) LOSS from both sides
7) Get picketed by Stonewall and the evangelical Christian Community simultaneously. Now that is an acheivement.
~tilts head, gives a quiet, warm smile to Parliament for that move~ Oh, well done.
My mental image is of a stately man with hair the colour of iron holding his chin just so to utter the words, “Get a life.” Beautiful.