… just another blahg …

Free some underwear from those irksome dangling tags to get a pretty good product: Hanes Tagless Underwear. Then come up with some well-conceived copy to sell it: Because the world gives you enough tags. Add a tri-series of neat artwork. So far, so good, right? Now, add a dash of sensationalism, let a mindless handful of viewers get a peek, and there it suddenly is: the perfect recipe for a disaster. McCann India is the ad agency in question and their campaign - now withdrawn - had 3 print ads. The first showed a man bearing the burden of a vivid bunch of “gay” things, the second had a guy pulling at a similar collage of stereotypically “black” things, and the third depicted an assortment of “Pakistani” stuff - each with the same words at the bottom. Hanes Tagless Underwear. Because the world gives you enough tags.

People have been calling the campaign “anti-gay” and “racist”. How is it either of those things? The fact that it was seen as biased is odd; it’s anything but! (The only thing that does bother me about the campaign is that people who aren’t really aware of the stereotypes in question will indeed become so after seeing it.) Yes, the executions are hard-hitting for the times, but I also think that the basic brand idea borders on brilliant! And that is what McCann’s defense should have been - instead of the spineless apology they actually mustered up.