'PC' Advertising

Many of the British Newspapers reported yesterday on the failed resurrection of the old 'GO TO WORK ON AN EGG' campaign for Lions Eggs. It seemed like a good idea to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the classic Lions Egg campaign featuring Tony Hancock by revamping the old campaign, that was until the watchdog nannies caught wind of the idea and called a swift halt. They feel that advising todays consumers to head of to work on only an egg would be totally irresponsible as we should be aiming for a VARIED diet. As if we'd take it sooooo literally that we'd ONLY eat the egg...... No toast, no butter, no sausages, bacon, tomatoes or beans, mushrooms.....need i go on? Plus I hasten to add, the FSA state that for the average person consuming 5-7 eggs per week would be perfectly acceptable.

As a follow up there's an interesting piece in the Daily Mail by Quentin Letts, taking a look at OTHER classic British adds and what todays public safety nannies might make of some of the UK's most CHERISHED campaigns. For instance to produce the old CAMP Coffee and Chicory advertisement today you would have to basically rename the product as the name of the coffee would risk offending the gay community and the scotsman in the kilt on the label could be considered racial stereotyping. (Regarding the problem with the name, I remember returning home to Australia after my first trip to London with some prized tins of Faggots for my gay friends and they were delighted!)

The Flake advertisement where the woman is in the bath eating her chocolate bar would have to be shown only after the 9pm watershed and the woman would have to be shown wearing water wings to prevent any accidental drowning in the bath.

The ‘If you love your children BUTTER them up’ advt would have to make some mention of the dangers of animal fats clogging up the arteries, also the child in the add is white, which would nowadays only help to cement racial profiles

The RSPCA would be most concerned about the rights of our primate cousins in the classic PG TIPS adds feauring those poor chimps, forced to dress up and humiliate themselves posing as humans.

The ‘OXO gives a meal MAN APPEAL’ add would be entirely inappropriate! Because it suggests that the cook of the household is only interested in satisfying her male partner. Where does this leave lesbians or people who don’t have partners?

And absolutely no one should leap out of a helicopters carrying a box of milktray thesedays unless they wear safety equipment and have passed an official risk assessment.

Are we really getting so stupid that we are no longer allowed to risk having a sense of humour? Crikey! Makes you wonder what they will ban next? Interesting to note though that all of these huge budget campiagns from years gone by are all featuring Food or Beverage products.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=463411&in_page_id=1770