Creamy

Britain’s No. 4 Most Complained About Ad: Gay Mayo

This Heinz Deli Mayo ad comes in at No. 4 in the total number of complaints received by Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority, which received 26,433 complaints about 15,556 ads. This ad snagged 215 of ‘em, beating out the Department of Health’s anti-smoking ad (which featured kids smoking crayons) but lost to the No. 1 ad, a domestic abuse PSA (which showed a young girl being beaten repeatedly).

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By: editor editor
On: Apr 29, 2009
Tagged: Advertising, britian, Heinz

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12 Comments

No. 1 · Sky
Lol, that was awesome, I’d love to see more stuff like this in the states.

Apr 29, 2009 at 12:28 pm · @Reply ·
No. 2 · Tallskin
There are organised groups of christians who have a sustained campaign anytime anything gay appears on the TV.

Apr 29, 2009 at 12:34 pm · @Reply ·
No. 3 · Steff
Actually rumour had it at the time that the American Family Organisation had orchestrated it. But I suspect that was just another attempt at ‘let’s blame everything on the Americans’.

Either way, 215 people complained about the ad; 16,000 signed my petition to bring it back: http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?heinz

I think I can rest happy on this one :)

Apr 29, 2009 at 2:38 pm · @Reply ·
No. 4 · Richard
@Tallskin: No shit, Sherlock.

Apr 29, 2009 at 2:39 pm · @Reply ·
No. 5 · vernonvanderbilt
That was a delightful advertisement. If I liked mayo, I would consider purchasing their brand. Effectiveness!

Apr 29, 2009 at 3:08 pm · @Reply ·
No. 6 · Alec
@Steff: Were you ultimately successful? It seems, given the numbers, that you should have been.

Apr 29, 2009 at 3:11 pm · @Reply ·
No. 7 · TANK
Deli mayo? That’s an oxymoron. Seriously, I think I just had aneurysm reading those two words together. DELI MAYO! …goys.

Apr 29, 2009 at 3:15 pm · @Reply ·
No. 8 · Steff
@Alec:

Well, they refused to re-instate the ad; by this point it had been splashed across the UK press for a couple of days so they got a healthy dosage of free advertising out of it. So I guess not.

There was something of a “Don’t buy Heinz” campaign that seemed to be pretty well-followed, but whether or not the whole escapade made a dent in their profits we’ll never know.

It still remains a bit of a smear on what was otherwise a well-respected company though.

Apr 29, 2009 at 3:19 pm · @Reply ·
No. 9 · Celo
I don’t get the ad.

Apr 29, 2009 at 3:51 pm · @Reply ·
No. 10 · Celo
Why is he wearing a deli outfit.

Apr 29, 2009 at 3:51 pm · @Reply ·
No. 11 · Steff
The idea is that the man in the deli outfit is actually woman — the mum of the family.

Apr 29, 2009 at 4:12 pm · @Reply ·
No. 12 · Andrew Triska
@Celo: Because he’s a New York deli guy (as seen through British eyes with a delightfully bad American accent). The mayo evidently makes Mum’s sandwiches more like…um…New York ones. Apparently we in the U.S. are head and shoulders over the Brits in terms of sandwich technology.

From Terry Pratchett: “[Americans] had a different idea about sandwiches. Sandwiches had been sold back in the Store’s Food Hall. The word meant something thin between two slices of damp bread. Floridian sandwiches, on the other hand, filled up an entire tray, and if there was any bread, it lurked deep in a jungle of cress and lettuce.”

Apr 29, 2009 at 10:24 pm · @Reply ·