New NYC Pretzel Ads Still Offensive to Non-Anorexics
Have you been following the controversy over the too-skinny pretzel ads plastered about New York City? Well, we have! In brief, Pretzel Crisps created these rather humdrum ads for their flat, waify treats proclaiming "You can never be too thin," and put them up in bus shelters and phone booths around town, because bus riders and phone booth lurkers are always a good demographic for that sort of thing. Ooh, people got mad! Because, frankly, you can be too thin. Trust us.
(Also, Pretzel Crisps, it's actually "You can never be too rich or too thin," and you should really attribute to Wallis Simpson if you're going to go there.)
But anyway, people were angry! One or two might have even threatened to stop eating Pretzel Crisps. Hoping to combat the backlash, Perry Abbenante, Vice President of Marketing at Snack Factory LLC, sent an email to NYC The Blog: "Pretzel Crisps apologizes for any offense the ad caused," he wrote.
The company also pleaded ignorance --"We didn't intend to advocate unhealthy weight loss with our ads" (just regular pretzel weight loss) -- and said they'd take the ads down based on feedback from bloggers. Which they did. Except only to replace them with this, EV Grieve reports.
via EV Grieve
Someone did not get the memo. Anyway, since blogger feedback is apparently an important part of ad making nowadays, we'll go on the record as saying that this campaign seems derivative at best. What about hiring a parasailing donkey to pep things up? Think outside the pretzel box!
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