Queenz boycottz beanz
How could Heinz have made such a critical miscalculation of judgment? Their decision to withdraw an entirely innocent, rather well made and frankly quite humorous advert has filled the media over the course of today. Here it is, by the way...
Now, there could be a number of things going on here.
It is possible that Heinz were genuinely shocked by the complaints about the advert, and, believing that the small number of complainants reflected a much larger silent number of people who'd potentially not buy their products, decided it was safer to withdraw it. That would be spineless, backward and somewhat naive frankly.
Alternatively, this could be slightly more sinister. The video is available on YouTube. The advert is being talked about widely. Heinz is getting huge amounts of publicity out of the argument. The problem is... if that's the case, they've calculated that offending gay consumers and sparking a boycott is a price worth paying to get their product noticed. That, frankly, is more homophobic than the 202 complainants to the ASA.
In unrelated news, research from the US has put Heinz Ketchup at the top of the tree in terms of brand equity, measuring consumers attitudes across six areas: familiarity, quality, purchase consideration, brand expectations, distinctiveness and trust. The potential problem for Heinz is that trust, certainly among gay consumers, has just taken a serious knock. Either they are inept handlers of consumer opinion who refuse to stick to their guns. Or they are expert handlers of consumer opinion who are willing to trade one group's offence off against another's lack of concern. They might have been widely congratulated by the gay community for making a rare advert that normalised, for the general public, a display of affection between two men. Instead, gay consumers are about to turn and walk away.
What a disaster. Henry John Heinz believed that "to do a common thing uncommonly well brings success." I can't help but think that Heinz have managed to do exactly the opposite, doing an uncommon thing uncommonly badly.
Being Sralan 2
A while ago, I suggested that taking Sir Alan Sugar's decisive approach would make for better political judgments by the electorate. Being Sralan didn't help Ken, but now it seems that Sralan might be in the frame as Labour's candidate for the next London mayoral election.
He'd certainly be an interesting choice, and to be honest, his support of Labour came as a bit of a surprise to me. I suppose I labour under the misapprehension that business people will be politically conservative, though I realise that perception is somewhat behind the times. While he's hedged his bets in response to suggestions that he's being talked about, I for one think he might be good for London. Apart from anything else, I'd love to see the moment he told Boris, "You're a total shambles. You're fired."
The other thing it signals is that Ken can't take his selection as Labour's candidate for granted. Having campaigned for Ken, I was sad to see him lose, but I've been sadder to see his inability to let go and move on. Hanging around your old place of work can't be good for anyone. Surely there's a friendly job centre that can take him in hand and help him look at his job options. How can he go to a job interview if he doesn't know his job options?
Actually, it does get me thinking. What do you do once you've been at the top of the tree? It can't be easy. There's a great line in Season 2 of the West Wing, when Jed Bartlett comments to Leo McGarry that being President of the United States is the last job he'll ever have. It makes me worry for people who climb the career ladder too early, who peak too soon. If it's hard enough for Ken to walk away at an age when most people are retiring, how hard can it be to be faced with walking away 20 years before. Where do you go and what do you do?
I suppose you can always reinvent yourself as the star of TV reality show. Now here's an interesting idea - Sralan gets City Hall and Ken gets the boardroom with Nick and Margaret. Now that's a show I would watch.
Shuffle 2
Well, that's peculiar. I was sure that track I liked was the Dresden Dolls. Now I've synced with iTunes and checked, it seems I was mistaken. I still don't like Elton John though.
Spotted
Clare Short reading the New Statesman on the Northern Line from Kennington to Clapham North and carrying a nice red jacket. Glad to see in our egalitarian age that nobody offered her a seat.
Honestly, it's like party conference on the tube sometimes...
Dwarf-sploitation
This week's Marketing Week reports that Pot Noodle will give consumer the change to duel with dwarves.
The activity, which also includes sampling, will launch at the Southend Airshow this month and will run throughout the summer... The Gladiator-style duels between consumers and dwarves on giant Pot Noodle containers will last 30 seconds. Consumers will be e-mailed film footage of their fight immediately after taking to the ring.
Recounting this story to friends yesterday prompted a random outpouring of dwarf-related entertainment stories. The oddest was from the recent Internet World, where an exhibitor had a dwarf painted blue in a cage on his stand. The blue dwarf apparently rattled the bars of his cage in the morning, and in the afternoon was running around handing out leaflets. It was something to do with document management apparently. If only document management were so exciting. Still, what with casino advertising featuring dwarves too, it seems dwarves are the new black. I can't help but feel a little uneasy that it's a very postmodern freak show, perhaps even dwarf-sploitation.
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