Controversial advertising

Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, July 31st, 2008 - 10 comments
Categories: youtube - Tags: , , , , , ,

Stuff reports that “a British commercial for a chocolate bar featuringThe A Team star Mr T has been pulled over concerns it could cause offence to homosexuals”. 

Here’s one airing locally that’s likely to cause some controversy too. It’s from a campaign by athletic gear manufacturer Skins called (perhaps tellingly) “Beyond reason”.

10 comments on “Controversial advertising ”

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  1. Stephen 1
    31 July 2008 at 12:40 pm

    For the complainants on the snickers ad: way to piss off walkers by implying they’re gay, or, way to piss of gays by implying they’d do an interesting sport like walking.

  2. Rocket Boy 2
    31 July 2008 at 12:47 pm

    How does someone speed walking cause offence to ‘homosexuals’?

    I personally think speed walkers look stupid and can’t understand why they don’t just jog but that doesn’t make them gay.

    Also I not sure why the second ad would be controversial, is it because black people are being presented as physically superior? I guess you could argue that it is racist, but my definition of racist involves being derogatory or putting down one group of people based on skin colour of ethnicity not highlighting a perceived strength or ability.

    It would be interesting to see an advertiser trying the same tact here in NZ.

  3. infused 3
    31 July 2008 at 12:53 pm

    What a load of shit. The world is going PC mad. Get some nuts!

    This advert from Intel didn’t go down well either: http://www.iforce.co.nz/i/da0b7368fa6b156d4d16dbba62034ffa.jpg

  4. killinginthenameof 4
    31 July 2008 at 1:01 pm

    I the the previous but very similar add caused outrage on kiwiblog, but really, is anyone suprised?

    Its a silly add though, skins are a very very good product for increasing performance and particularly reducing recovery time. Theres scientific reasoning behind the advatage they give yet they base the ad on the color they make them, its stupid, they are not even the kind of thing (like say pizza) that you’d consider advertising through controversy.

  5. dad4justice 5
    31 July 2008 at 1:07 pm

    I was born and bred on Monty Python and rule number one to eight were very clear. Anybody for a pc sheep dip said cousin Bruce ?

    Mr T is kewl.

  6. Stephen 6
    31 July 2008 at 1:37 pm

    infused, that is painfully funny! In the movie ‘Thank you for smoking’, an old rich southern guy died and all his pallbearers were black. Ha!

  7. Matty Smith 7
    31 July 2008 at 5:35 pm

    Hmm. I didn’t even see what there was about the guy that would lead a viewer to think he’s homosexual. Effeminate, yes, gay, no. I guess many people associate the two immediately, though.

    The ‘Skins’ ad is just abhorrent. How did that get made?

  8. Andrew Bannister 8
    1 August 2008 at 10:55 am

    Rocket boy, if I said white people are more intelligent, then by your logic, I am not being racist. And sorry to invoke Godwin’s Law here, but using rocket boy’s logic, Hitler was not racist when he talked about the Arian superiority. The KKK isn’t racist because it believes white people are superior?

    That ad is racism through and through – if people cannot see that, it’s no wonder a lot of people talk about “PC gone mad”, because in their eyes, it just makes no sense.

  9. TomS 9
    1 August 2008 at 12:33 pm

    The skins ad shows some people don’t know what to make of skin, the snickers ad complaint shows some people have to thin a skin.

  10. Ari 10
    3 August 2008 at 3:25 pm

    How does someone speed walking cause offence to ‘homosexuals’?

    I personally think speed walkers look stupid and can’t understand why they don’t just jog but that doesn’t make them gay.

    You are completely missing the point here. A lot of the homophobia people are subjected to converges with criticism of anything about them that can be viewed as even slightly effeminate- and comments about “real men”, especially “red-blooded men” are often used to hide the implicit insult to gay men.

    Telling a powerwalker that he’s “no real man” and “needs some nuts” while pelting him with aforementioned nuts is insulting both to men who aren’t afraid to be slightly less stereotypically “manly” than normal and to gay men.

    And as for power-walking: Aside from the fact that walking is better, if more time-consuming exercise than jogging, asking why they don’t jog is sort of like asking why slalom skiers don’t just go straight down the mountain. The answer is because that’s a technical limitation people put on themselves when they engage in certain types of sport.

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