Best Gay Ads 2007

[TotallyOz]

http://www.newnownext.com/2008/01/radars-gay-for.html#more

 

Anyone seen any in Thailand to contribute?

[bkkguy]

this ad on skytrain stations for a chocolate sandwich biscuit always looked gay to me, but most comments seemed to be about Thai skin colour preferences!

 

 

bkkguy

[Guest wowpow]

Cut and paste at it again but not only for 2007

 

Dining Room Table/ Brand: IKEA/ Company: IKEA International /Business Category: Retail / Region: North America

 

Agency: Deutsch / Year: 1994 / Target: Mainstream / Themes: All Gay Male-Themed Ads, Couples

 

This groundbreaking, famous spot for Swedish furniture maker IKEA made news around the world, though it was rarely seen. It features a male couple shopping for a dining room table together. The two middle-aged guys, who finish each other's sentences, say "a leaf means commitment." At the end, one says, "We've got another leaf waiting for when we REALLY start getting along" -- perhaps implying having children.

The ad was part of a larger campaign that dealt with non-traditional families and was the first time an advertiser dealt with a gay relationship frankly in the US. (It was not the first, however. One year earlier, a remarkable Danish commercial for Politiken newspaper was the first to depict a male couple together, with a passionate kiss.)

Although IKEA accepted the ad, the retailer still had some reservations, perhaps justifiably so. The spot ran only ONCE in New York City and Washington, D.C. after 9:30 in deference to children, before it was pulled following bomb threats to stores.

Many wrongly assumed the commercial was meant to target gay buyers, but the campaign was about "non-traditional" families, including a mixed race couple and a single mom with an adopted child.

The commercial's director told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that it was not important to be the first company to show a gay couple together and "Actually I was surprised when we first started looking at this" that no one had done it before.

Late-night showings remain somewhat familiar terrain for advertisers with gay themes, including a 2000 ad for a Brazilian portal web site and a British commercial from the now-defunct Rubberstuffers organization.

The IKEA ad disappeared only a few weeks after it began when the retailer got a bomb threat at a store from conservatives, along with calls for a boycott.

Nonetheless, the commercial was well-liked by the gay community. The gay stereotype of being fashion-oriented and tastemaker was leveraged in the ads, giving a sort of "Gay Housekeeping Seal of Approval" on IKEA. One of the two actors also is openly gay, though he said that was not known when he was cast for the part.

IKEA has revisited gay and transgender themes a number of times in its commercials over the years.

http://www2.commercialcloset.org/cgi-bin/i....html?record=76

 

For some reason I remember mostly the IKEA Gay adverts which were shown in the UK, as far as I know without adverse comment. I was shocked at the violent reaction in the USA.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

 

Thailand has a very innovative and successful advertising industry and which is the recipient of many International awards. The Krungthai card sticks in my mind.

 

Thai credit card courts "pink-baht" market

 

published Friday, June 15, 2007

 

Thailand's leading credit card company is attempting to tap into a growing group of big spenders -- gay men and lesbians. A recently released TV commercial by Krungthai Card (KTC) has caused a stir with its provocative gay undertones, Malaysia's Star newspaper reported.

The commercial, titled "Stand Up . . . Say I Am," depicts a hip Bangkok bar where a ravishing Thai woman looks flirtatiously into her handsome neighbor's eyes. Who are you? she thinks to herself as the Thai man meets her gaze. The audience is cycled through a series of sexualized possibilities -- the woman sleeping in bed, with the man watching her; the man admiring himself in a bathroom mirror; the two dancing; and the man lounging in a sauna with a handful of hunky men.

Back at the bar, as the woman leans to kiss him, she notices that he is staring lustfully at someone behind her. She slowly turns her head to see a man seductively raising an eyebrow at her would-be lover.

Then a voiceover declares, "I am . . . KTC Titanium MasterCard."

The ad is targeted at the gay community, jokingly called the "pink baht market," confirmed Niwatt Chittalarn, president and CEO of KTC, told The Star Online. But it is also aimed at the growing metrosexual market. In that past few years, the metrosexual lifestyle has become increasingly trendy in cosmopolitan Bangkok.

 

http://www.gay.com/news/article.html?2007/06/15/1

 

I suspect that agencies are homing in on the public perception of Gay men being highly fashionable trendsetters. Certainly some products such as Absolut Vodka in the UK made their name in the Gay scene before becoming International success stories.

 

I don't think that I have been influenced by Gay advertisements in the straight press? Maybe it makes me warm to the publisher and product?

[Guest gayaffairs]

"I Can't Believe It's Not Boy Butter"

 

"Cable TV stations in New York and Los Angeles will shortly be running the first television commercial ever for a gay sex lubricant. Call me a prude, but I sort a wish they wouldn't. Not that I have anything against personal lubricant advertising, but this particular commercial is so unoriginal, unfunny and crudely suggestive that I think it reinforces some of the worst gay male stereotypes out there.

 

"The ad is a take-off of the ' Can't Believe It's Not Butter commercials of the 1990's. Only this time the product is Boy Butter and the slogan is I Can't Believe It's Not Boy Butter.

 

"You never see the actors, just their hands and a close up of the product which is displayed on a kitchen counter along with some citrus fruits.

 

"Given that the packaging is designed to look like a tub of margarine, I really don't think that anyone should be leaving this product out on their kitchen counters. But really, that's just the start of this commercial's transgressions.

 

The thing ends with a voice-over announcer saying 'Try squeezing a little Boy Butter into your tight agenda today!' "

 

http://www.afterelton.com/blog/dennis/i-ca...-not-boy-butter

 

Think this appeared in about May of 2007