Want our business?

Ikea, a worldwide company, deals with worldwide advertising. We've advanced to the point that Ikea sees featuring a gay couple in its magazine as an advantage. But for the Russian version of the magazine they pulled that gay article. They didn't want to run afoul of the nasty anti-propaganda law. Yes, indeed, gay people were not happy.

Someone named Usagi left a long post on AmericaBlog. This person said there are better ways for Ikea to handle it. For example, mail the magazine to customers and in place of the magazine in stores put up a sign saying it is the anti-propaganda law that is the reason why the magazine isn't available.

Usagi wrote a letter to brands with a worldwide presence. While marketing to gays earned lots of gay cred 10 years ago, now that is a baseline. These days, not marketing to gays means losing gay cred (and some straight cred too).

In addition, it is not possible to appease the anti-gay crowd. Give a little and they'll ask for more. And that won't make any difference in the bottom line because so many of them are shopping in the Parallel Economy -- they intentionally buy only from proudly Christian businesses so all profits go towards spreading the Christian message.

A little mistake in advertising? We'll forgive you. Once. But only if you fix it.

Because if there’s one thing that we’ve learned very vividly, it’s that our worst enemies aren’t the haters. There aren’t that many of them; they’re just very, very noisy. No, our worst enemies are the neutrals. Because they pretend they’re not doing anything for anyone, but what that really means is that they’re enabling the haters and defending the status quo (for whatever reason: ignorance, cowardice, profit–it really doesn’t matter).

You want our money and our business? Cool. Earn it.