Australian Beer Ad Banned For Insulting Redheads!

Australia, Australian Beer Ad Banned For Insulting Redheads!

And we thought that America was the land of political correctness run amuck…But in the US we think we could still get away with a redhead joke. However in Australia that’s evidently no longer the case.

Here’s the deal…

According to the Drinks Business, Carlton & United Breweries, who can’t seem to stay out of trouble, launched an “Unexpected Ginger” commercial on Australian TV in February to mark the release of their new Rusty Yak Ginger Ale.

In those on-air spots, a narrator describes discovering the “surprising” gene for red hair “floating around in our beer, just like it’s been floating around in human DNA” and goes on to call for consumers to “stop the spread of the gene” by searching its six-pack bottles for ones marked with special “ginger gene” labels.

Australia, Australian Beer Ad Banned For Insulting Redheads!

Carlton & United (vintage plaing cards image)

The Carlton & United (CUB) commercials elicited an immediate backlash from the redhead community (there’s a redhead community?), and complaints started pouring into Australia’s Advertising Standards Bureau in from consumers, (we’re assuming they were redheads) who accused the brewery of “making fun of people with ginger hair and portraying them in an inferior manner”.

Responding to complaints, CUB argued the campaign was intended as a “lighthearted” way to bring the Rusty Yak brand to life (and with a name like Rusty Yak they were probably desperate to do something).

“The advertisements simply seek to associate the launch of the Rusty Yak Ginger Ale product with redheads in our community in an affectionate, light-hearted and humorous way by linking the hair color with the ‘crisp and zingy Rusty Yak gingery flavor.

“The line in the advertisements asking consumers to help ‘stop the spread of the gene’, which line is raised in the complaints, is a reference to the fictitious ‘ginger gene’ in the products, not in people, and invites consumers to look for bottles of the new product hidden in regular packs of Yak Ales to win a cash prize. In any case, this line is not literal and clearly humorous with a subtext that the products are full of ginger flavor due to the fictitious ‘ginger gene’ in the products.”

Australia, Australian Beer Ad Banned For Insulting Redheads!Okay we kinda get Carlton & United’s convoluted argument but we gotta admit that we don’t see the commercials as essentially mean-spirited…But then again we’ve no redheads currently working at the ACB compound and if we did we wouldn’t expect them to be chasing down a Rusty Yak Ginger Ale to begin with.

However Australia’s Advertising Standards Bureau disagreed with both CUB and us and banned the commercials saying that it vilified people with red hair and was  it was likely to incite ridicule.

So what’s next, mobs of redheads taking to the streets and demanding that all Red Ales be removed from the marketplace?

Maybe…at least down in the ‘Land Down Under.’

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