Technically, the image above was published by Bob Garfield to declare victory in his jihad with Comcast. But it’s being reissued here to illustrate a few (hopefully) final thoughts surrounding An Open Letter to Omnicom President-CEO John Wren. We’ll elaborate on the image shortly.
In Garfield’s follow-up post connecting a Tennessee truck driver’s killing rampage with the Snickers commercial, the columnist was still sparring with critics. Garfield remained condescendingly adamant in his position, although it would be nice if he refrained from continued gratuitous use of a certain slur.
Yet one can’t help but wonder if Garfield considers himself successful in the Snickers scenario. It’s pretty likely, given his humungous ego. But take a closer look at the realities. For starters, the commercial was pulled after the Human Rights Campaign Foundation directly confronted Mars Inc. Word of the spot had already worked its way through the GLBT grapevine, even before Garfield addressed his letter to Wren. So it’s tough to say if Garfield played any role at all in the decision to yank the offensive message.
As previously noted, Omnicom and John Wren never publicly acknowledged anything. Not to be too presumptuous, but we’ll bet the responsible ad agency, London-based AMV BBDO, doesn’t feel guilty of wrongdoing. In fact, they probably view themselves as victims of a PC mob. Has Wren spoken to his agencies’ leaders about the topic? Or reprimanded anyone for the mess? Those who urge that corporations strive for authenticity and responsibility might hope so, but we’ll bet against the possibility. A related Advertising Age story quoted Gary Graf, the creative director behind the homophobic Super Bowl Snickers spot, and the man showed zero signs of regret. “It’s silly,” said Graf. “At the end of the day, take the stupid commercial off the air. It’s on the internet anyway. Millions have already seen it, and now millions more are going to track it down.”
And what about Garfield? When presented with typically lousy customer service from his cable company, the man went to war, launching an elaborate online attack and negotiating with Comcast officials. In contrast, a human rights incident—which Garfield tied to murders—only inspired nasty volleys with blog visitors.
Is Garfield announcing, “Mission Accomplished” in this controversy? If so, he kinda looks like President Bush aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
5 comments:
Honestly, HJ. This is silly. I know you hate me, for reasons that still aren't clear to me. But as I never "declared victory" in the Snickers situation -- or anything like it -- isn't a bit ridiculous for you to prove that such a declaration is wrong? Bloggers use this strawman technique all the time, but you get the prize.
Also, if you get a moment, check out my long, long Ad Age piece (and, soon book chapter) about ComcastMustDie.com. You'll find out what it was all about.
Yours,
Bob
Not really trying to prove anything—or win any prize. Most of our comments in this essay are speculation versus declaration. Believe it or not, we were just hoping you’d use your media power to push Omnicom a little harder and see if they would respond. Honest. Please realize that we consider the entire Snickers/Anti-Gay/Insensitivity incident to be tied to the industry’s global issues of bias/exclusivity; hence we’re always looking to examine and extend matters.
Honestly, Mr. Garfield, we don’t hate you or anyone. One of our general goals continues to be challenging and debating opinions. Your opinion is consistently bold, and your position makes your opinions very public and prominent. So our responses tend to err on the side of loudness in an attempt to match the attention-getting quality (which we realize we’ll never achieve—but hey, we’ll always give it a shot). And like you, our criticism can be condescending at times. Perhaps we can both agree such a tone has its usefulness—as well as its drawbacks. Cheers.
BTW, Mr. Garfield, we think we do know what Comcast Must Die is about.
This may be a condensed overview: Corporations need to be respectful and responsive to customers, particularly when they are in a service business. Customers have lots of power, especially in today’s Digital Age, and they will use that power to make sure a corporation lives up to its professional and even social responsibilities. Unfortunately, corporations must sometimes be forced and humiliated into action.
In an abstract sense, it’s really no different than the basic problems with the Snickers scenario. Could we not argue that the advertising industry has neglected its responsibilities on issues tied to exclusivity and bias? Try viewing our recent observations involving you as the equivalent of Comcast Must Die. Except going after a dinosaur like Comcast is a lot easier than confronting the ad industry on its lack of professionalism.
Cheers.
hj,
ok, point taken, but ultimately you are still criticising me for confronting omnicom ...or comcast..and NOT confronting the ad industry over its gross neglect/marginalization of minorities..
first, i've taken my shots over the years on that subject. and (usually to your disappointment or worse) taken on racial issues that come up in ads themselves.
but more to the point, i don't think it's fair to roll your eyes at the snickers episode just because it's not the target you, personally, think is most deserving.
as a practical matter, i generally use new or almost new ads as the point of departure for my weekly column. snickers was current, and a last straw at that. secondly, it's a logical flaw to criticize rain for not being snow. thirdly, i should think you'd cheer anyone who fights the battle of basic human dignity in advertising.
Mr. Garfield, perhaps we haven’t been clear.
We agreed with you that the Snickers spot was insensitive, offensive and deserved to be pulled.
For the record, we posted our perspectives on the Ad Age thread (as Jack Jones—Ad Age’s commenting system won’t accept HighJive) and on the Adrants thread (as GLBTalker). You’re welcome to review the threads and see for yourself.
However, we disagreed with your excessive reasons for its offensiveness. Specifically, while we viewed it to be anti-gay/homophobic, we didn’t think it was hate speech (which we believe requires active intent versus cultural cluelessness). We also think you went too far tying it to Matthew Shepard and the Tennessee gunman.
Why do we make a distinction? Because we believe over-blowing the charges makes people reject and/or disregard the entire matter. Instead of getting people to consider the issue, too many were too turned off by your aggressiveness. You sounded almost insane in your anger, in our opinion. Perhaps you have legitimate, personal motivations for your perspectives. But we think you hurt the real argument via your argument. We also think you put the Omnicom and Snickers people in an impossible position too—you essentially accused them of creating hate speech. As we’ve stated before, if the responsible ad people are indeed deliberately creating hate speech—and capable of inciting murder—then we’re all in real trouble.
Our stance on the issues involving the ad industry is rooted in the belief there is more cultural cluelessness versus active racism taking place (although we don’t deny the latter exists in areas and companies). It might not seem like a great distinction to some, but we believe it is.
We were not criticizing you on confronting Omnicom versus the industry. Omnicom is symptomatic/symbolic of the overall industry anyways. We think you were ineffective in your confrontation with Omnicom. Unless you have information you’re withholding, it appears that Omnicom and Wren completely ignored you. This post was actually intended to wonder why you would let Omnicom blow you off, while you wage a multimedia war with a company that screwed up your home cable service. Seems like a strange set of priorities to us.
We don’t expect you to confront the industry on the gross neglect/marginalization of minorities. In fact, we hope you don’t. You’re not qualified to address the issue (and we don’t mean that in a negative or critical sense). Our earlier posts regarding your Snickers stance were pointing out our belief that you didn’t connect the offense with the global issue of cultural cluelessness and insensitivity in our industry. You diagnosed the cough without seeing the cancer. Click on the labels for this post and read the entire collection of essays on the specific subject. We’ve been pretty consistent in our opinions.
So why do we give a shit about your opinions, which we deem mistaken and misguided in this scenario? Because you have a very huge and public soapbox. And if you use it—intentionally or not—to possibly mess up the greater cause, well, count on us speaking out too.
On a side note, we believe the GLBT community deserves as much support as any other group. If you visited this blog regularly, you’d see we support and discuss issues for nearly every group imaginable. There is no favorite minority here, Mr. Garfield.
We do cheer for those who fight the battle of basic human dignity in advertising. But we don’t think it’s right to cheer when the argument is being poorly handled, ultimately hurting the greater cause. Again, the distinctions might not be clear to you, but we make them regardless.
The ends do not justify the means for us.
Thanks for your time and consideration.
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