A can of worms

It’s hard to know what’s more depressing about the Heinz ad gay kiss fracas: the fact that people actually felt strongly enough to complain, or the fact that the ad was taken off the air by Heinz. We’re talking about the least sexy man-on-man kiss in the history of television. Anyone who found this offensive is an obvious lunatic.

But, digging deeper, there’s a curried bean in this somewhere that burns my ass.

200 complainants is quite a lot by ASA standards but, if the ASA choose to investigate, I’ll bet they find nothing “inappropriate” or “offensive” in the ad’s content. How could they? It’s entertaining but ultimately banal. So, an appropriate response to the complaints about the ad would’ve been Heinz saying, “Get the fuck over it.” The fact that they went all “gay” about it, apologising for causing offence, is bad enough because this smacks of homophobia in itself. But there’s something inauthentic about the whole story that has the cynic in me smell a rat in this kitchen, and it makes the whole thing a measure more insidious yet.

This is the very first TV commercial produced for Heinz by their new ad agency, AMV BBDO, which took over the company’s £10 million contract recently. I wonder if there’s any coincidence here.

It seems to me that the creatives at AMV BBDO are pretty clever: create a minor furore over some mild gay content in a “family” ad; then, create massive brand awareness by removing the ad with much fanfare and apology, declaring it the response of a company “that listens” - suddenly, everyone will look at the ad on the internet, and all those thousands of people who never even heard of Deli Mayo before (which - say it out loud - sounds uncannily, almost poetically, like a certain newspaper) will now be familiar with your product, plus you’ll generate a bit of a debate because plenty of people will kick up a fuss about that fact that there’s not very much to make a fuss about. Hey presto. Most successful advertorial concept of the year.

Maybe I’m overthinking it but it makes sense to me that good ad companies get millions of pounds for shit like this.

Sad thing is, this withdrawal method is not gonna be too great for the self-esteem of gay kids, or the kids of gay parents, who are gonna be extremely sensitive to the idea that their existence is a justifiable source of shame - it’s just such an idea that this entire hullabaloo inflates. And therein lies the fucking rub. And it’s why Stonewall are up in arms, and Gaydar are encouraging a boycott of Heinz products, and there’s a Facebook group campaigning to bring the ad back. Wow. That’s a lot of publicity right there.

Whether this situation has been engineered by cynical creatives, or blown out of proportion by a company of such flimsy mettle that it bows to the pressure of an ultra-conservative minority, Heinz and their ad bods are obviously doing something so wrong it’s weirdly right. They even made it onto my blog. Clever cunts.