The ice-cream purveyors at Klondike/Unilever have responded to my complaint about their heinous heinous ads! Read below:
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Hello MS. SARAH _____,
Thank you for writing to us.
We do apologize for the experience you reported concerning Klondike Commercials.
Unilever Ice Cream markets its various brands in ways that are meant to entertain and engage our target audience. It was only intended to be humorous.
We certainly do not wish to offend anyone. You may be interested to know that all of our commercials and advertisements are pre-tested and various techniques are used to evaluate consumer reactions. Based on the results of our pre-testing procedures, the presentations are chosen for their majority appeal. Please let us assure you that your comments are extremely important to us in evaluating the success of our commercials and advertisements.
We will certainly forward your comments to the Marketing staff. Consumer comments are very important and evaluated on a regular basis.
Sincerely,
Your friends at Klondike
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More to come on this later. But feel free to poke some holes in their pre-testing procedures with their target audience. I see no way that these ads wouldn’t offend most demographics – even the darling demographic of straight white men dislike being portrayed as oafish.
Ohh. I get it. It appealed to the majority of their testers, so they sent it through. I suppose if their pre-testers laughed at blatant racism, child molesters, and drowning puppies, they would send that through, also. Because the point here is, it doesn't matter how awful the joke is, or even if it encourages the most horrible aspects of ourselves. If it makes you laugh, it will sell more ice cream."What would you do for a klondike bar? Would you… rape your own son?""Would I ever!!! Give me that ice cream!" "(Daddy, no!)"What? You don't find that funny? Our mistake. You weren't part of our target audience.Anything to move the product… right?
Actually, Kalvyn, I did find that humourous. But it is a joke in bad taste nonetheless and I would never wish for somebody to rape their own son for a klondike bar.
Now I'm wondering what the form letter-response to a complaint about the child-raping commercial would look like. "Your fault for watching TV after 11 p.m.! The Adult Swim demographic thinks it's hilaaaaarious!"
So just a boilerplate thank you note then.
I re-read this and I'm starting to think the purpose of the "you may be interested to know…" part was to be an oh-so-subtle dig at my perceived nuttiness. "Come on, humorless feminist, take a joke! Take it! And while you're at it, get me some ice cream!"So yep, DZDZ, to answer your question – just a condescending form letter. It's not unheard of for companies to change their ways because of consumer complaints, though, even in the realm of advertising. Also, I suspect the feedback will indeed find its way to their marketing department. So, it is what it is – either an effective or not-so-effective piece of lazy activism, or an outlet for crankiness. Either way, it makes me feel a teensy smidge better. Next thing you know I'll be circling typos in red pen and mailing them to newspaper editors for kicks!
Everyone ELSE likes it, Sarah, why can't you???
But feel free to poke some holes in their pre-testing procedures with their target audience. I see no way that these ads wouldn't offend most demographics – even the darling demographic of straight white men dislike being portrayed as oafish.Unfortunately, I suspect most people aren't aware enough of the role of harmful gender narratives in the world to get offended by these sorts of things. The gender narratives of "boring wife" and "stupid husband" are too deeply ingrained in the common culture for them to register as offensive to most people.It's tragic commentary on the state of critical thought about gender roles in our culture that their pre-testing procedures registered no warning that others might find these commercials offensive.Glad to see they're at least answering letters on the subject, though.
mmmm Unilever Hypocrisy: All They Want is Money Axe and Dove… are you surprised??? There is only one corporation value, make more money… your values and an other human beings are irrelevant.