While stopping short of a full apology to outraged gays, the maker of Snickers has dumped from TV broadcast and from its website a Super Bowl ad that shows two men who accidentally kiss over a Snickers bar. The ad was killed late Monday after several gay organizations complained to Snickers-maker Masterfoods USA, a division of Mars, that the ad was offensive to gays. “It was never our intent to offend anyone,” says Alice Nathanson, a spokeswoman for Masterfoods USA. She pointed out that the ad scored ninth in USA TODAY’s Ad Meter consumer ranking of Super Bowl ads. But asked if Masterfoods planned a specific apology to gays, she responded, “We’ve done what we can.” The commercial, first aired during Sunday night’s game, showed two car mechanics who accidentally end up mouth to mouth while munching both ends of a Snickers bar. In response to the unexpected kiss, one shouts, “Do something manly.” They each then rip out a handful of their own chest hair. The ad was to be part of a multimedia campaign that Snickers was building around it. The ad directed viewers to a special website where visitors could vote for alternate endings to the hair pulling  including the two drinking motor oil, the two fighting with wrenches or the two being joined by a third mechanic who asks, “Is there room for three on this love boat?”Among groups who complained is the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “Mars needs to apologize for the deplorable actions of its Snickers brand,” said GLAAD President Neil Giuliano in a statement. But not all gay activists object to the ad. Cyd Zeigler, co-founder of Outsports.com, a website for gay sports enthusiasts, says he saw it at a Super Bowl party with 30 gay friends  and no one had a problem with it. “I simply wasn’t offended by it,” Zeigler says. “I just don’t see how a couple of mechanics pulling out chest hair because they kissed is offensive.” Still, he thinks that Masterfoods would be wise to apologize. “They’re a business,” he says. “And no company in a free market is in the business of alienating consumers, intentional or not.” Some marketing experts agree an apology is in order. “They might want to develop some very positive program to show they’re progressive and inclusive,” says Lynn Kettleson, a crisis management expert. The company also might want to run an apologetic national newspaper ad, says Katharine Paine, a public relations consultant. “Then it would be end-of-story.” Masterfoods’ Nathanson is non-committal. “We always look at lessons learned,” she says. “We’ll be doing that with this.”
USA Today
Maybe because I am a sadist and laughed my a$$ off when they ripped their hair out of their chest (still laughing), I don’t think it is that bad or offensive. What do you think?
