22nd May 2008
Fuck You, Canadian Club
Dear Canadian Club Whiskey,
Your advertising department is a pack of shortsighted fools.
My mother’s father actually did drink whiskey regularly. Very regularly. In fact, he was severely alcoholic. And when he drank, he was abusive. The emotional impact of that has scarred my mother, aunt, and uncles for the rest of their lives. So “YOUR DAD DRANK LOTS OF OUR WHISKEY” gives me a strong, visceral, anti-your-whiskey reaction.
Beyond that personal experience: I wouldn’t want to be like any of the people in your ads. I wouldn’t want to be a male slut. I wouldn’t want to be the old-time manly man. Part of this is because I just haven’t got the manly equipment, being a woman and all — but trust me, even if I was a man, those are not characters I would ever aspire to.
I have multiple relatives who are mildly or wildly fond of whiskey; I will not be buying any of them Canadian Club as a gift ever again. I will not have it in my own house under any circumstances; any bottles in our cabinet will be poured down the drain, and it will never be purchased by us again. My liquor budget for gifts and personal use is no more than a couple hundred dollars a year, but I doubt I’m the only one who’s strongly offended by your advertisements. Hopefully the loss of customers will far outweigh any gains.
Sincerely Loathing Your Company,
Me
Positively, though, Project: Canadian Club – Your Mom Had Groupies has put a beautifully inclusive, humorous spin on this otherwise pointless, misogynistic, homophobic ad campaign. One of my favorites so far:
I was a big fan of the Stepford ad, too. I’m glad you liked the fake campaign. Just as I was ready to go paste up a fake ad over the Canadian Club ad, it got replaced with another insipid ad, this time for yogurt.
[...] Racialicious and The F-Word, the project has spread even further, getting mentions at Faux Real, Mental Hygiene, and Noli Irritare Leones, as well as suggestions for new ad campaigns from a number of people who [...]
I’ve added your ad to the site. That one is hard to even look at, I can imagine that it was hard to make. Thanks for contributing! I don’t know if you saw the new entry, but Beam Global (owner of Canadian Club) has contacted me about this project. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it yet.
Ouch! This is where Brand Reputation Management comes in. Beam Global needs to get on the stick and try to silence you people with some free samples.
Remind me to update my blogroll to include MC