Guinness Goes Anti-Gay for St. Patrick's Day

What is up with all the gay hate surrounding St. Patrick's Day?

As far as I know, in all of its 249 year history, the St. Patrick's Day Parade in NYC has never allowed any group or individual to march behind an identifying LGBT banner.   This policy has sparked protests, the staging of alternative, inclusive parades, and even harsh words from the Irish Foreign Minister.

I get it that the Irish are largely of the Catholic faith - a faith not known for its embrace of gays and lesbians - but St. Patrick's day is so far removed from its' religious grounding, that it seems somewhat silly.  For instance, in our celebrations today we will most likely drink green beer in excess and gorge on corned beef and cabbage.  In the 5th Century, however, the namesake of this holiday - the real St. Patrick - said up to 100 prayers in the morning and up to 100 more in the evening.

So, what's religion got to do with it?

What surprises me most is that Guinness - the quintessential brand of St. Patrick's Day (and all things Irish) - has jumped on the anti-gay bandwagon.  Its "St. Patrick's Day Primer" campaign seeks to provide instructions on how to properly celebrate the 'friendliest day of the year' - March 17th - but its humor strikes a negative cord in this, its "Man Hug" spot:

This trend towards the "anti" gay in commercials is troublesome.  It cultivates and reinforces negative attitudes towards gays and lesbians and predisposes audiences to negative responses towards this community in the real world.  

Case in point - audience response to Doritos "Best Part" Superbowl ad.

This clever take on a very shared experience that we all (straight and gay alike) can relate to - licking the 'Doritos dust' from our fingers - was practically crucified for its sexual overtones between two men.  The ad was called "weird," "creepy," and "sickening."

I have spoken critically about brands missing an opportunity to incorporate gay and lesbian market segments into their general market ads.  It is a decision that makes both business, and moral sense.  With so much at stake in terms of profits, and also, in terms of quality of life for gays and lesbians, I am discouraged that more big brands not only miss the opportunity, but choose to work against the LGBT market by making light of us in their ads.

AdAge Delivers No Value

When it comes to purchase decisions, many customers buy for value - they delicately weigh the differences costs and benefits.  [Well, this is how I understand value.]


While individual decisions may be a mystery to us, a recent study reported in Advertising Age revealed broader consumer perceptions of value vs. price paid for products/services. [Remember that - value vs. price paid... huh?]

OK.  So what?  The article warns us that these are not "the sexiest, fastest-growing, best known, most heavily advertised or even most universally used" - but really, there is nothing surprising on the list, other than perhaps some of the "non-American" brands (for ethnocentric Americans of course).

This is by far one of the WORST articles I have read from Ad Age.  The article relied almost exclusively on quotes from the research team at Millward Brown, which conducted the study.  For instance, 

Apple didn't make the top 10 list, Mr. Walshe said, because while it ranks among the highest of any brand in perceived desirability, it also ranks very high in perceived price.

"People rate Apple as being very expensive," he said. "Even though its desire ranking is very high, its price perception is even higher."

What?!  This is a totally oversimplified vision of value.  Value is not determined by price alone.  Rather, a more broad term such as "costs" should be used in the value equation (Costs-Benefits = Value).  Sure a MacBook might be more expensive, but consumers may still deem it as delivering higher value than a lower priced laptop because it may be more durable, need less service, or simply perform better.


Clearly, AdAge got a little lazy here.  This article is clearly a press release, released by Millward Brown.  This is not an unheard of practice.  News organizations regularly use press releases as the foundation upon which a story is built.  Repeat, a FOUNDATION. 

Like any other business, news organizations add value along the distribution channel by using methods of journalism - such as investigation, copywriting, and editing - to transform the press release into a news story.  By failing to do this, AdAge is shortchanging not only its readers, but also itself.


As readers and subscribers we pay to hear AdAge's "expert editorial voice."  When that goes silent, we are fed pure propaganda that is simply not worth reading and definitely not worth paying for.

The Mall vs. Muslims

In my last post, I alerted you all to the @america cultural center that recently opened in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The placement of an American “cultural center” in a shopping mall in a largely Muslim country seems ironic to me, to say the least.  It does, however, provide a great opportunity for us to think not only about the nature of the American culture generally, but also the nature of the conflict the American culture has with Islam (and vice versa).

The modern day shopping “mall” is not only an American cultural invention, but also our cultural icon.   A completely manufactured environment; perfection packaged for your consumption.  From the air we breath (ripe with Cinnabon), the temperature control, the relaxing muzak, to the indoor flora - the Mall provides us with the opportunity to live the good life, or at least buy some of the outer trappings to make our lives look good.

[Opinion Alert - Unqualified Opinion Follows]

What a better metaphor for the American culture than a shopping mall?  Our culture is about consumption, consumerism, expressing ourselves and exerting our freedom through our choice of brands. (Which seems counterintuitive to me, in terms of freedom, but who am I to judge - I am just a humble brandDR)

[Return to Objectivity] [Kind of]

I seem to remember a flurry of articles and news coverage around 9/11 that tried to answer the most pressing question of the day – “Why do they hate us?” 

The answer first was – they hate our freedom.  And, freedom isn’t free, so we have to fight them to protect our freedom and impose freedom on them.  Done and done.

But, they still hate us.  Hmmm…  perhaps our first answer was wrong.  They don’t hate our freedom, they hate our policies.  Ah, gotcha.  So our policy of imposing freedom through force, and our policy of imposing our cultural beliefs on them through a "cultural center" might be what’s bugging them.  

Here's my illustration of the situation:

I think my diagnosis is most in line with Bill Mahrer, who may have gotten closest to the “right” answer – “they hate us because we don’t know why they hate us.”

This clear lack of understanding of the Muslim culture, to me, is the big problem.  Through understanding comes appreciation, and tolerance of differences.  Why must we go “teach” Muslims about us, when we can just as easily “teach” ourselves about Muslims?  Home is where the heart is, not the hate is.  Let’s take care of that…

Brand America - Coming to a Mall Near You!

No matter how you feel about the ubiquitous "mall" - one thing is sure, life is better amidst the sweet smell of Cinnabon.  


The United States is hoping the sweet smell rubs off on it, as it opens its first American Cultural Center in Jakarta, Indonesia.  In its' essence and objective, the cultural center, dubbed @america, is a classic public diplomacy effort to improve the image of the United States abroad.

Public Diplomacy, by my definition, is the place where public relations and international relations intersect.  It is a bit about marketing and a bit about government/public policy.  It is all about control and influence.

By the looks of it, the center is a kind of creepy planetarium:

Adding splashy technology - like the multi monitor Google Earth project, called Liquid Galaxy, and a full stock of iPads for playing around and exploration - seems to do little to smooth over more underlying tensions between the U.S. and the Muslim world.

According to the NY Times, vistors

[were] not swayed by what [they] assumed was the motivation behind the invitation to [their] school.

“I believe that America hates Muslims, and I’m a Muslim,” [said one student]. “I still believe that after coming here.”

Given this response, one would think the $5 million for start-up and the ongoing $3 million yearly operational budget could be better spent - perhaps here in the U.S. - on programs to educate Americans about Islam and the Muslim culture.  How can we expect to cure hate abroad, when we have hate right here at home?

[If you need evidence of the hate, just recall the supposed "Ground Zero Mosque" debate that raged not that long ago.]

Oscars v. Superbowl - Advertising Smackdown, Pt. 2

In my last post we saw that in terms of nickels and dimes, the Superbowl proved to be a better value for advertisers.  But what about the return for those nickels, dimes?  Which media was more effective? 

I love posing questions that I can't really answer, but still find value in pondering.  Determining effectiveness is kind of like figuring out why we are fat.  Is it the pint of Ben & Jerry's or the bag of Doritos, or the soda we washed it down with?  Or, that we take the elevator, even when we are going down just one or two floors? There are just too many factors to consider, and it is a difficult task to isolate the actual drivers of effectiveness in any given market scenario.

So, lets look at a few things we may be able to draw some definitive knowledge from... Let's start with "recall," a term used to refer to the memorability of an ad, or the degree to which audiences remember our ad.  Recall is one piece to the much larger concept of effectiveness.

Super Bowl ads, as usual, took a humorous approach - with about 80% of the Most-Recalled ads using humor to communicate with audiences:

Oscar ads used humor too, but to a slightly lesser degree.  About 60% of the Most-Recalled ads used humor.

So - humor is a driver of recall.  Maybe, maybe not.  The American Cancer Society ad on the Oscars

and the NFL's "Best Fans Ever" spot on the Super Bowl

both scored high on recall, without hitting our funny bone with a rubber mallet.

Let's use the numbers we have to both clarify and muddy the water in terms of effectiveness.  

First, the recall scores are MUCH HIGHER on Oscar ads than on Super Bowl ads.  Looking at all 20 ads as a whole, Oscar ads would steal the top five spots overall in terms of recall while Super Bowl ads steal the bottom five spots overall.

This still leaves unanswered questions about why we see differences in recall between the two "events." Specifically, the Best Buy ad - which outperformed any Super Bowl ad in terms of recall, BUT ONLY on the Oscars, NOT on the Super Bowl.  The Hyundai ad ('old technology') also ran during both events and scored in the top 10 for Oscar ads, but not for the Super Bowl.  

Perhaps the answer lies in frequency?  The Super Bowl views primed our minds, and then the Oscar airing triggered our memories? Or does the answer lie elsewhere?