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Levi Strauss Ad
Wins Top Honors

Levi Strauss Ad
Wins Top Honors

The Commercial Closet Association hosted its fourth annual "Images in Advertising" Awards Ceremony Monday night at New World Stages in Manhattan. The nonprofit group honors ad agencies and companies whose mainstream print, broadcast, and Internet ad campaigns feature fair and respectful portrayals of LGBT people. The group also monitors advertisements whose use of gay stereotypes can be offensive to the LGBT community.

The Commercial Closet Association hosted its fourth annual "Images in Advertising" Awards Ceremony Monday night at New World Stages in Manhattan. The nonprofit group honors ad agencies and companies whose mainstream print, broadcast, and Internet ad campaigns feature fair and respectful portrayals of LGBT people. The group also monitors advertisements whose use of gay stereotypes can be offensive to the LGBT community.

"It's been a busy week of pulling ads," Michael Wilke, executive director of Commercial Closet, laughed. He's right; from Snickers to Nike, television commercials have been pulled left and right this week for featuring negative portrayals of the LGBT community.

Those ads weren't on anyone's minds Monday night, however. "We don't honor the worst," Wilke said. Instead, Wilke, the board of directors, and an advisory board chose to honor ads that "bring [the LGBT community] a step closer to equity in society."

The awards ceremony was emceed by formidable Sirius OutQ radio host Frank DeCaro, who sashayed onto the stage amid applause. The self-described "beige Volkswagen" introduced the nominees for each of the 10 categories -- Outstanding Interactive Ad, Outstanding Nonprofit Campaign, and Outstanding Commercial among them.

"I felt like I was actually reached out to," Katie Kelly said. Kelly, an associate broadcast producer at Arnold Worldwide, assisted with the nominee selections and was satisfied with the decisions made by Wilke and the boards.

The honorees included the iconic Paris Tourism ad (the one featuring that rugby make-out shot), an outdoor ad for BMW's hardtop convertible ("Hard top. Firm bottom. It's so L.A."), and the San Francisco 49er's in-house ad pledging the team's support for the GLAAD Media Awards.

DeCaro announced that in lieu of a representative from the 49ers, the team had sent a video to accept their award. The crowd (largely made up of gay men) went wild as the lights dimmed, only to boo once Lisa Lang, the 49er's vice president of communications, took the screen instead of the shirtless football players everyone had been expecting.

The star of the evening was the winner of Outstanding Commercial in a Mainstream Market. The honor went to Levi Strauss for its television commercial depicting a young man putting on a pair of Levi's jeans. As he pulls up the pants, the street scene below crashes into his apartment, including a handsome stranger in a telephone booth. The two eye each other flirtatiously and then walk off into the city together.

Everyone had the sense that they were seeing double after watching this ad, and not because of the open bar. Levi's had developed a separate advertisement along with the winner, both featuring an almost identical premise. The winning ad's counterpart features a young woman in the phone booth and, essentially, a straight ending.

The reason behind the twin commercials? "Love is the same," Robert Cameron, VP of marketing for Levi Strauss, explained. "It was an innocent way to make a powerful statement about absolute equality." Not to mention an innocent way to make people do a double take, especially when the gay advertisement joined the straight one on Bravo after having aired exclusively on LOGO, a lesbian and gay network owned by MTV.

Levi Strauss's winning advertising strategy helped put them at the top of the list this year. "We assume victory," Cameron said, "and then we advertise that way." (Hannah Clay Wareham, The Advocate)

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