This Story Has Everything -- Sex, Sarah Jessica Parker, an Orthodox Rabbi and a Corporate Giant Brought to Its Knees Within 24 Hours. And Why Not To Serve Ketchup to Your Guinea Pig Nor Smell Napalm!

Philip Stone November 25, 2004

It has not been a good week for famous brand advertisers. In Israel Unilever learned that Sex and the City doesn’t include Israeli cities; Heinz was told it wasn’t a great idea to serve tomato ketchup to guinea pigs, and a computer game maker had its poster for a Vietnam War game banned for proclaiming “napalm never smelt this good.”

Regular Guy

First to Israel where billboards showed up one day featuring Sarah Jessica Parker in an outfit which could have come straight out of her Sex and City show --– sequined dress, bare shoulders, bare knees, even some thigh – lying on her tummy and hawking Lux soap, one of Unilever’s big products. Now regular guys being regular guys, that was just fine. But Orthodox rabbis being orthodox rabbis this was a serious problem.

This being Israel they weren’t going to mess taking the complaint to any advertising standards board. Instead, a senior rabbi contacted Unilever and told them the billboard got replaced right away or the ultra-orthodox community in Israel would immediately boycott Unilever products that besides soaps included several important food brands.

And Unilever’s response? Within 24 hours Sarah Jessica Parker got a fashion makeover. The dress was now long; the shoulders were covered, all of this .at a considerable cost.

Unilever denies, however, that it gave in to a boycott threat. “A spokesperson explained, “We dressed Sarah Jessica Parker for the winter.”

Back in the UK, where the government gave notice of its plans to ban junk food advertising before 9 p.m., because it fears too much salt and sugar can do as much harm to kids as alcohol and tobacco does to adults, a hue and cry went up over a Heinz Tomato Ketchup television ad.

The ad showed a guinea pig eating his staple diet of lettuce, but instead of drinking water it was sucking ketchup. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). saw red, claiming children might try and copycat the ad, and that would not be good for guinea pigs who need their water..

Heinz, however, said it would not buckle under to pressure and would continue showing the ad, claiming viewers would recognize the ad was meant in a humorous way. The RSPCA was considering its next move that should probably include getting some advice from ultra-Orthodox rabbis.

And lastly, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned a poster promoting  the Vietcong Purple Haze computer game for stating “Napalm never smelt this good.” 

Seven members of the public had complained. The ASA said the quote “was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.”  Some three million people died in the Vietnam War, untold thousands of them to napalm.