Heinz Two Man No Messed Up

Heinz were close to earning praise for their New York Deli mayo ad as it represented a non-traditionally nuclear family.
It was tongue in cheek humorous and featured two men as the parents in this familial skit and like all couples at the start of the day ended with a rushed peck on the cheek as one went off to work with the sandwich lovingly created by the other.

All was quiet on the advertising front until as a result of allegedly only 202 complaints to the Advertising Standards Agency claiming that the ad, which is not shown during specific child orientated broadcasting, was "offensive", "inappropriate" and "unsuitable to be seen by children". So having taken the brave step of commissioning the ad in the first place Heinz ran for cover pulling the ad from our screens, claiming they had done so because they were "listening to its consumers".

Whoops bad choice of words there, because now of course all the consumers who hadn't spoken out in praise of the ad because of its inclusivity in today's society are speaking out. There is a petition calling from those who:

"feel that the decision to withdraw the advert is wrong in the face of a small number of narrow-minded individuals.

"By doing so, Heinz have given the impression that they would prefer to cater for the homophobic than the free-thinking, and the decision has provoked upset, brand distrust and outrage among the LGBT community and outside of it."

and calling on Heinz not to "bow down to these homophobic individuals."

At time of writing this petition has 1844 signatures. The originators only wanted to get a few over the 202 complaints that Heinz had originally received.

For those of you on facebook there is a group calling for a boycott of Heinz products until the ad is reinstated, currently with over 775 members. Both of these have been set up in the last 24 hours.

Oh dear if Heinz really are listening to their consumers they are going to have to listen now, after all there are many varieties of people in this world, whether there are 57 distinct variations I cannot say, but one variety shouldn't be dictated prejudiced views over another.

Update 16:30 909 in Facebook group, 2500 signature on petition.

Further Update 17:03 My stat counter has reported a visit at the time stated from H.J. Heinz Company's IP address from Pittsburgh, Pa. somebody at the World Headquarters is clearly taking an interest in this issue.