Beer Commercials Offensive to Both Women and Men

23 May 2007

The Ombudsperson for Gender Equality and Government Committee for monitoring and evaluation of implementation of gender equality policies reacted to the beer commercial of �Zagrebacka pivovara� brewery, that goes with the slogan �Zuja�s Law No.11: Men notice only the important stuff�. The said commercial depicts a woman coming home with bags filled with groceries � after she went to hairdresser to get done for her man � but he totally ignores her showing interest only for beer bottles.

The full commercial can be viewed here.

According to Gender Equality Ombudsperson Gordana Lukac-Koritnik, the commercial suggests that the man doesn�t actually care about their partners, or the fact that the women in the commercial drags in (for his needs, too) bags full with food and groceries, but cares only for the bottle of beer.

This depiction of relations between sexes directly humiliates and discredits the woman and her role in the household, but also insults the man who is reduced to simpleton beer-drinker of limited interests. Of particular concern is the fact that the web-site of Zagreb Brewery promotes such offensive and humiliating message about relations between sexes as �the male law�, claims the Ombudsperson.

The Government Committee for monitoring and evaluation of implementation of gender equality policies in the media believes that the ad-campaign violates the Law on Gender Equality and Law on Media. In Committee�s view, such commercial messages are not offensive only to women, whose sole role in life would be to supply the men with Zagreb Brewery products, but to men also, for they depict men as stupid and lazy consumers who consider beer-drinking the most important activity in life.

The Ombudsperson and the Committee demanded from Zagreb Brewery to revoke the commercial and apologize to the citizens.

The Zagreb Brewery�s Public Relations Department came out with an interesting statement of its own, published on Javno Portal. In their view, the brewery had no intention to insult or offend anyone. In fact, they claim, the campaign was based on the findings of a public opinion survey(!).