Tuesday Wake-Up Call: A Heineken ad flops, and HBO's 'Silicon Valley' subtly trolls Facebook
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Welcome to Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. What people are talking about today: Heineken’s getting criticized for a beer ad with the tagline “sometimes, lighter is better.” Chance the Rapper took up the issue on Twitter, saying he fond the spot “terribly racist,” and actress Gabrielle Union posted the commercial with a line of puzzled-looking emojis. It’s a light beer, which explains the tagline. What bothered some people was the interplay between the tagline and the images on the screen. As Ad Age’s E.J. Schultz writes, the commercial
“shows a bartender sliding a Heineken Light down a bar to a woman who appears dissatisfied with her glass of wine. The beer passes several dark-skinned bar-goers before reaching the woman, who has lighter skin than some of the other patrons.”
Meanwhile, the message “sometimes, lighter is better” flashes on the screen. One Twitter user wrote: “Damn. That’s not even subliminal, that’s overt.” Others said they didn’t see racism, just an ad for light beer. As Schultz writes, this was Heineken’s response: “While we feel the ad is referencing our Heineken Light beerwe missed the mark, are taking the feedback to heart and will use this to influence future campaigns.”
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