Moosehead pulls ad that offends women
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/n ... 99&k=89006
Moosehead pulls ad that offends women
CP
Thursday, February 16, 2006
After complaints from a feminist group and incensed customers, New Brunswick's Moosehead Breweries has pulled an ad that implied women should speak no more than 50 words a day.
The ad, which appeared in The Onion, a U.S.-based satirical magazine, read: "The average woman speaks 10,000 words in a day. Roughly 9,950 too many."
"It's offensive," said Rosella Melanson, executive director of the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women. "It's saying women should not be listened to."
The brewery, based in Saint John, N.B., has pledged to introduce a policy to avoid publishing similar ads in the future.
Melanson said she heard about the ad after Ms. Magazine featured it last fall in its No Comment section, which deals with items considered insulting or degrading to women.
Ms. Magazine, which describes itself as the "media expert on issues relating to ... women's rights," later published an apology from the company.
"Moosehead Breweries will not tolerate this type of sexism and tasteless work again," Joel Levesque, the company's vice-president of public affairs, wrote in a letter to a woman from New York who complained about the ad.
"I have been told that the creative team in question now fully understands what they did and that their lame attempt at humour was not amusing."
Levesque said the ad appeared only once last March in The Onion's Minneapolis, Minn., edition, where the company was conducting some test marketing. It was pulled as soon as a handful of consumers complained.
"It's not something we're particularly proud of," Levesque said. "The bottom line is we don't condone sexism - intended or not."
Moosehead apologized to offended customers in writing and the ad agencies involved were told the ad crossed the line.
Any ads that might be considered "a bit edgy" must now be approved by Saint John executives, Levesque said.