Duck Duck Gray Duck - A Look At Marketing In Minnesota

Canada’s consumers are falling victim to overreaction and hypersensitivity too! This ad for the Toronto Blue Jays created by Publicis Toronto shows Frank Thomas in a young child’s room where a pillow fight has broken out. The 6-foot-5, 175 Lb. slugger drills the kid with a pillow, sending him flying to the floor. It’s kinda funny and seems pretty innocent.The Television Bureau of Canada, the watchdog that approves TV commercials for private broadcasters, forced the Jays to pull the ad and revise it to not show the boy being hit to the floor.

The fun-wreckers at TBC said, “It is imperative to keep the best interests of young children and youth in mind when producing commercials. Because children and youth are very impressionable, commercials should not contain any visual or audio portrayals which are detrimental to their well-being.” Since when are pillow fights “detrimental?”

But this is what advertisers face these days. You wonder why most commercials suck? This is why. The brilliant minds behind good commercials are stifled and shelved every day because of this kind of lunatic thinking. The people who complain about ads like this are the same people here in the U.S. who blame McDonald’s for making their kids fat but go to their school board to ban the game of tag in phy-ed class because it makes kids feel bad if they aren’t “it.”