It'll only be allowed if it's "guerilla marketing" under a bridge depicted by a lite-brite.

This must be the week for MasterFoods, makers of Snickers, to have ad controversies.

They have kissed the EU's ass and stop marketing/advertising to children under the age of 12.

Horrible commercial, roundly repugnant. Almost as homo-erotic as marc's site!

I think the football players found the ad "roundly repugnant" too, but for a different reason than bryan does.

I am suprized the Bud Light "immigrants can't speak English" commercial has not come under more fire. I guess the GLAD people watch more NFL than immigrants?

Pretty soon there will be laws against being offended because that is the way the world seems to be going. A lot of people out there need to relax.

Maybe Snickers pulled it because it sucked and they are using the reason it might offend as smokescreen.

Because it did suck. as most of the commercials did.

As an ad guy, yup, most of the commercials suck- diddly-ucked. The Snickers spot is just guilty of trying to hard to be funny.

Two guys accidentally kissing? Blah. Boring. Not even ironically funny.

But there were a couple of notables:

Funniest spot: Bud Light "Immigrants". Simple and and damn funny. (The Nationwide K-Fed spot was pretty funny, too.)

Most Conceptually Uplighting: Coke's Spoof of Grand Theft Auto. Well done and clever.

Best Amateur Spot: Doritos "Car Crash" Bias, I like physical humor.

Most Disturbing Spot: GM "Distraught Factory Robot" Depicting a robot committing suicide? Just irresponsible and lacking taste. The spot was actally working up to that point, too.

I saw this after the thread about "Blazing Saddles" above, and this commercial has all the flaws that characterize what passes for "comedy" these days. Some cheap sex angle, stereotypes and violence. All it lacked was mindless profanity. This ad simply was not funny -- yea, it inspired a visceral reaction in people, but when it was finished, you were left thinking that it was just stupid, and that's not the kind of thing that will inspire people to buy your product. The other ads that really irritate me now are the one where apparently some men think they have to have their masculinity affirmed by their choice of soap (the mansuit ad) or hamburgers (the "I am Man" ad). Have we really reached the point where men are so sexually insecure that they can sell hamburgers that way?

J.R.: My offense is not at the content of the ad as much as the idea that somebody thinks that sort of thing will inspire me to buy their client's product.

Side note:

That GM ad reminded me of a Chemical Brothers music video "Believe in Something".

I liked this commercial but the best was the beer toting hitchikers with the axe and chainsaw. :-D

The GM robot-suicide commercial bothered me, but the Snickers commercial was just stupid. I didn't watch the halftime show, but based on the article I'd say people are overreacting.

The American crowd/viewing audience is gettin to be a bunch of pu___es, always complainin about something. It doesnt surprise me that there are numerous groups complaining about some of the commercials, but really..get a life. In this day and age, do you really think respectable companies would INTENTIONALLY air degrading commercials for the sole sake of offending someone? I think not. I think society is becoming too sensitive, and should just deal with it. SHUT THE F__K UP

How does two men kissing make you want to buy a Snickers bar, which, by the way, are getting smaller and smaller for more money of course ! I think this was some ad guy's idea of pushing the envelope and he might have pushed a few people off the edge as far as impulse buying a candy bar. Mars Candy is supposed to be family owned and they can't be happy especially for the money they spent on the ad.

Personally I thought the one where they rip hair out of their chests (the original?)was the best. They felt their manhood was in question, so they overcompensated. Will it make me run out and buy a Snickers? No, but then no ad would do that because I've never liked Snickers bars. As far as any group being offended, well, damn I hate when that happens. We've become a country of oversensitive candy-asses who are too worried about offending someone every time we open our mouths. There's a Glen Frye song that says it all...GET OVER IT!!

I will never buy another Snickers bar again. What a disgusting ad. If I want to see 2 gay anythings kissing, I'll rent a sick video. Or patronize some sick locale.

Ok I believe that people need to layoff a bit. This commercial is not instilling gay hate! Two heterosexual men accidentaly kiss, completely disgusting them (as any 2 men would react to this happening). Then for the ad to be made funny, they follow with the punchline and make them do something manly to re-attest their manliness. Is there really any other way to look at this ad? Does everything in this country have to be controlled by support groups and organizations? Are we really that sensitive? You want to teach gays to be strong and fight for their beliefs. What are you teaching them when you have to complaint about every aspect of the media with a minimal spec of homophobia? You are teaching them the same low self esteem that you are fighting against! I have many gay friends and they laugh their behinds off after watching this commercial just as all these "activists" should.

All the Snickers ads are repugnant. The SB ad was bad enough but the series featuring the guy with the guitar, ("Let me help you enjoy this Snickers") absolutely suck. I wanted to tell they guy that if he wanted me to enjoy my candy bar, he should leave me the hell alone. I'm shopping for another candy bar whose manufacturers don insult my intelligence.
TD