Apologize for the long absence. Just a busy bee in this busy world...but let's get back to gay ads, shall we?
So as I was reading the NYT article about the Absolute ad (insert shameless plug for other post here), they had a link to billboard ad in Kansas, and alas, a new post is born:
So here's a billboard for local Kansas jewelry store Tivol, that has two men looking at a ring with the headline "Tivol & Tomorrows."Okay, yay! Great. Awesome. Nice way to target LGBT couples that are getting married and are looking for wedding bands...right?
Well, not so much.
When asked about the "gay" ad at hand, the director of marketing for Tivol said, "We did not go into it wanting to be political...Nothing is overt, and all the 'Tivol &T' ads are open to interpretation."
Is it just me or is there not much to interpret? Two men, trying rings on, one has his hand around the other who is admiring his hip band, and a headline "Tivol & Tomorrow?" When I see this ad, I think it's a pretty obvious observation that it's just a tab-bit...okay, extremely obvious these two men are together. Even the people who DON'T like the ad "interpret" it as gay...hence why they don't like it.
Now, Tivol really could have made this ad without the gay intent, but unless everyone that works there is blind, I don't really believe it. I understand that it's still a bit taboo for companies, large or small, to be creating ads targeted towards the LGBT community, especially about gay marriage since it's such a hot political topic right now. However, I think if you're going to come out with an ad like this, you should back up and stand by what you put out. And in this article, Commercial Closet founder Mike Wilke brings up a good point about how some companies put out advertisements that are "gay vague", meaning the ad has gay references targeting the gay community, but can be overlooked by everyone else. Understandable for some companies, but sad that it's still this way.
I don't know, what do you all think about this? Do you think it's okay for companies to produce these "gay vague" ads without acknowledging the theme or should they put it out and own up to it?
This also reminded me of a Budweiser ad that came out a while ago where people thought the two guys were just friends...and others thought it went a little further than that...I'll let you be the judge.
So I have to say, I could go either way with the Bud ad, I don't necessarily feel like they are more than friends, but I don't discount the possibility either.
ReplyDeleteAs to the other issue, I think that in this case, the ad speaks for itself. That being said, there is something subversive about the company's ambiguous stance. There's something quite effective about the company maintaining the "gay vague" posture, as if, there's nothing at all taboo about the situation depicted in their ad. Anyway you shake it, I think Tivol is on board with same-sex marriage, or at least couples spending their money on wedding bands there.
Nice post, as usual, mister!