Heinz Meanz Bigotz

To the Daily Telegraph, in response to their distinctly biased presentation of the recent Heinz Meanz Bigotz kerfuffle:

Recently, the firm was threatened with a boycott by gay rights campaigners after it withdrew an advert that showed two men kissing.

The advertising regulator received about 200 complaints that the Heinz Deli Mayo advert was “offensive” and “inappropriate”.

I noted on the comments page attached to the article (which is moderated, and I expect mine won’t get through) that they “forgot to mention” that the reason Heinz withdrew the Mayo ad from British TV was because of a mass online campaign that shut down their website – by the American Family Association in the United States. They also “forgot” that the ASA announced that they saw nothing offensive in the Heinz Mayo ad. It appears the 200+ complaints were just a British version of the AFA campaign.

Oh, and (other stuff was happening) but I got an apology e-mail from Heinz. Apologising for running the ad. I get that it’s just an ad, not important in the scale of things: but I’m not buying another Heinz product again….

Heinz Meanz Homophobia

From The Guardian, July 1st.

The AFA, which says it stands for “traditional family values” and targets the “influence of television and other media” on society, sent an email “action alert” to its 3.5 million subscribers denouncing the Heinz Deli Mayo commercial as the “kind of ad we can expect to see in California as they prepare to vote on homosexual marriage”.

“I thought you might be interested in seeing the Heinz ad featuring a homosexual family and two homosexuals kissing,” said the email action alert.

“We suggest you forward this to all your family and friends letting them know of the push for homosexual marriage by Heinz. This ad is currently running in England, but no doubt can be expected in the US soon.”

The action alert, sent out on June 24, included the phone numbers of Heinz’s US corporate headquarters and an email letter of complaint for subscribers to support.

Cindy Roberts, the director of media and public relations at the AFA, told MediaGuardian.co.uk that after the alert was sent out Heinz US called to let the organisation know the ad would not run again.

Roberts said Heinz had admitted that the volume of AFA members’ email complaints had “bogged the [computer] system down”.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I feel like Heinz just decided to make do with homophobic customers only, and I feel it should be allowed to do so. Heinz brands listed here. I admit this is unlikely to hurt Heinz much: judging by the Duggars family recipes, homophobic Christians eat a lot of processed food.