Okay, if you think illegal underground snake-fighting is where you want to go with your brand, um, then I guess that’s your choice. Perhaps the Heinie guys have decided that they can’t let Dodge have all the fun tangling with PeTA in ads, so let’s go snake-fighting! But just because they’re not warm-blooded & fuzzy, it doesn’t mean the animal-rights activists aren’t going to protest. And once they do, you may simply win over the whole PeTA-hating market, which has to be, um; hmm…
Actually, this may end up being a pretty good decision for an international brand like Heineken. A lot of people are getting tired of the animal-rights extremists, so perhaps there’s a market out there for this type of stuff. But seriously, why choke off a segment of your potential market anyway, just because you’re jealous you didn’t think up that “Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign. (Or who knows: maybe this is from those same guys hoping that lightning will strike twice!)
But my fear about this type of ad is that the only market you’ll actually attract will be the drug-trafficker and Bond villain market; and that one’s usually not around all that long due to mortality rates.
But you know what? I love leather, and I almost bought a snake-skin jacket once; and if it weren’t for that underground snake-fighting scene in the ad, I would have given this spot a 10. For real! (Except for the fact that the “snake-skin” jacket looks fake, like a pattern printed on PVC or something. But maybe it’s real: who knows?) See, I like this renegade attitude, but I don’t see the need to take on a group like PeTA and all their associated animal-rights fanatics unless they’re already on your ass for something else. Then, I’d say: “Fire away!” But why attract negative attention in the first place? (Is no type of publicity really bad publicity?) The jacket is fine, even if PeTA says it’s not, but the snake-fighting scene? It’s really a little over the line for the current cultural positioning, I’d say.
But I really hate to be a buzzkill, too. It’s just that, you see: this isn’t a movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme; it’s a commercial for a product. And this underground snake-fighting scene might enrage a very vocal segment of the population; and these guys are very aggressive and persistent: make no mistake! But Heineken signed off on it, so it’s their choice, and perhaps it’s their funeral. (But I hope not! I really like Heineken! But there’s something about that star on the bottle that makes me think they should do an ad that says the little star on the Heineken bottle makes a little star out of you when you show the good taste to drink it. {But it definitely could use some fine-tuning!} But maybe they’ve done this idea already before? I can’t remember.)
But hey: maybe I’m wrong. I’ve been wrong before lots of times. But I’ll always admit it when I see I am wrong: that’s how one learns new things, in learning from mistakes!
So here’s the ad:
