Dandy

There seems to be a bit of a fuss over the new Heinz’s advert. It’s already been pulled by the company after just a week, following more than 200 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority. But should Heinz have stuck to its guns? Now, prominent gay figures like Stonewall’s Ben Summerskill are calling for a boycott for what they see as Heinz’s capitulation to bigots. Almost 6,000 people have since signed an online petition calling for the ad to be reinstated.

Personally, I thought the ad was pretty funny and doesn’t appear to have been made purely to shock (a la Benetton). If that was the plan, why back down straight away? It does seem quite odd though that no one at Heinz predicted there would be a few complaints. That is, of course, unless it’s all part of a big plan to generate lots of publicity around what is, after all, a fairly bland-looking product. I seem to remember a similar consumer-led campaign when the company pulled its salad cream product a few years ago.