HOT TAKE: Is This Any Way To Advertise Against Homophobia?

Well, it is "a" way.

NOTE: I’ve started a new HOT TAKE weekly “feature” where I “hotly” review new-ish ads. “People” have asked me why I don’t review many new ads. The answer is: Because most of them aren’t worth writing more than one of two words about: BORING or STUPID. But, moving forward, I will give it a try. There will be bad reviews, good reviews, meh reviews, and puzzling reviews. None of them will be very long.

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Homophobia does kill. Gay people. Zoom is an LGBTQ collective in Ecuador. I don’t get these ads. If you do, please comment.

Zoom—through their Guayaquil ad agency Paradais DDB—decided to go with a “tongue-in-cheek” approach, showing how being a homophobe could possibly result in your death. See, above: Man is so homophobic he won’t let another man perform the Heimlich, and chokes to death, I guess. (see top panel).

The press note is brief:

“Being a homophobe is dumb, right?
Sometimes so dumb that it may kill you.”

Here, an unconscious woman is saved by mouth-to-mouth but freaks, kicks her savior in the face, and falls back in the water, drowning completely this time (see top panel).

Who’s the target of these ads? Homophobes? Yeah, they’re not going to “resonate” with them. Might make them smile slightly, leading to less hateful behavior (lol)? Is it the General Public? Well, their overwhelming reaction is going to be pretty close to mine, I think:

Yes? And?

Like I said: I don’t get it.

Previous HOT TAKE: Virgin’s “Highland Rider” Ad Is Bad.