Last year, a Canadian television commercial for Armstrong Cheese showed an elderly woman feeding her cat all sorts of tasty human food, but when she pulls out the cheese, the woman shoves the curious cat off the table, and hisses, "The cheese is mine, cat."
I emailed the company, telling them I found that 'shove' a bit brutal. The company responded, saying I wasn't the only one offended, and they assured me the cat wasn't harmed during the filming of the commercial. They didn't pull the ad, but cut out the shove. Now, the cat appears to simply fall from the table.
I don't know why I'm sharing this with you. Perhaps just to say that if a few raised voices can make a change to an obscure and probably harmless commercial, think what we can do when it comes to something that really matters.
8 comments:
Good for you. I see a lot of commercials that are offensive and I am not easily offended. I don't think the makers realize that they turn viewers off of the product instead of selling it. I've heard that companies think one letter is worth thousands of those who feel that way and don't write.
Thanks, Jan. I have heard that advertisers are easily influenced by a few complaints.
There's a British sitcom that dates back to the 90s called "Keeping Up Appearances," that's aired here in the U.S. that I love, and can watch the reruns of it over and over.
But I have to say I was pretty horrified by one episode where a man was attempting to move a beautiful but stubborn St.Bernard dog from a front yard by yanking the poor dog's leash unmercifully -- with a rousing boom of canned sitcom laughter in the background.
To me, of course, this wasn't funny at all. And I would have loved to slap a collar around this show's producer's neck at that moment -- just to show him (or her) how it must have felt to that poor dog.
Ech!
Kudos to you for your letter, Lynn.
Georgie, if the man was in the Bucket's yard, I imagine he was trying to pull the dog out of there before Hyacinth made an appearance. But you're right, never sacrifice common sense for laughs.
I wish all companies were as responsive as this one was to viewer complaints. What Jan says is true -- if they think it's going to hurt their bottom line, they listen.
But you're right, Lynn. If we all spoke out more often, the world would be a better place.
What kind of cheese was it?
Karen, I may write the odd letter, but I'm not really one for making waves. Wish I were.
LOL. I believe it was cheddar, NT. Might have been gouda. To tell you the truth, I don't remember. It's not cheese I buy, so it didn't make any difference to their bottom line if I was offended by the ad or not.
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