Opinion

Adshel was stupid pulling the gay sex posters. Not evil

I can honestly say I’ve never seen an outdoor media owner occupy six of the top ten trending topics in Australia on Twitter before.

And I suspect that I may never see it again. But today Adshel achieved that dubious achievement with its poor decision to pull the Rip & Roll safe sex ad.  

adshel_twitterBut I have to say I feel a bit more sympathy for the company than it has received so far.

I must confess I haven’t read all 160 news stories that Google News currently lists. But I suspect that most are not entirely sympathetic towards the company.

adshel_google_newsHowever, I do feel a little sympathy for the predicament the company finds itself in.

And that’s because the outdoor industry is currently caught between two opposing forces.

There is genuine pressure on the industry over “community standards”.

Adshel is a key member of the Outdoor Media Association – indeed the company’s boss Steve McCarthy only just finished a stint as chairman.

And the OMA is very aware of the risk of more legislation around outdoor. As we reported earlier this month, a Parliamentary inquiry into the very topic of community standards has just wrapped up and is yet to report its findings.

So the industry needs to be seen as willing to react quickly to legitimate community concern. Sexualised billboards near schools, the now banned AMI “longer lasting sex” billboards spring to mind. Better to act when genuine offence is caused than to wait for tougher legislation or a bureaucratic ratings system that would send ad dollars away from outdoor. it’s the key principle behind the whole advertising industry hanging on to self-regulation.

It was within that context that Adshel made its big blunder. Which it was. And the explanation that it had been a victim of an underhand lobbying campaign wasn’t much more impressive either.

The company could have certainly done with better PR advice.

As a result, this has become a classic case study in the speed at which social media works.

My guess is that when the complaints – which with hindsight were clearly orchestrated by a Christian lobby group – started rolling in, the organisation panicked slightly. It’s decision to pull the ads wasn’t so much anti-gay; it was anti-controversy. While that’s not something to feel proud of, it’s not morally repugnant either. The company is not the evil one it is being portrayed as.

Adshel isn’t talking, so I’ve no idea at what level of seniority the original decision was made at. But I’m willing to bet they didn’t spend as long thinking it through as they wished now.

(As an aside, Adshel is a joint venture between Clear Channel and APN. You may recall the fuss in the US after Clear Channel bowed to a rightwing backlash against The Dixie Chicks when one of them said they were ashamed of George Bush. They were removed from Clear Channel’s playlists.)

However, I think Adshel has put enough in the karma bank that it may deserve the benefit of the doubt.

That Google News screengrab I put at the top of this piece is a search on the keyword “Adshel”.

After the two blocks of stories about the safe sex controversy above, the next group of stories is the following:

adshel_pets

That’s a story from a couple of weeks back. Adshel has donated its inventory to a campaign to help find homes for abandoned pets. And it’s not a token amount of space – on my route to work in Sydney I’ve seen that campaign running everywhere.

Adshel is also a long term supporter of The Sydney Theatre Company (declaration of interest: they gave me a ticket to A Streetcar Named Desire the year before last).

If you were an inherently illiberal company I suspect you probably wouldn’t be spending your sponsorship money with Carbon Cate Blanchett.

And those are the Adshel causes I happen to have been exposed to without going looking.

I see also from Adshel’s own web site that it also makes donations to charities of the staff’s choice and allows them to donate work time to community and charity projects.

If there is one consolation to be taken for the company – and the outdoor industry as a whole –  is that this story exploded so quickly – more than 50,000 Facebook protesters in less than a day – that it’s likely to die almost as quickly. By swiftly putting the posters back up, there’s no obvious follow up for day two.

By all means call Adshel idiots for this one. But bigots isn’t fair.

Tim Burrowes

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