Spare Room Be our guest…

Erin Brockovich made headlines in New Zealand twice this week — once with the announcement that she would endorse NZ appliance retailer Noel Leeming on TV ads — and a second time when she gave their parent company Noel Leeming Group a serve for using a sexist advertising slogan.

Noel Leeming Group is also the parent company to Bond & Bond, a long-standing retailer whose advertising agency has recently tried to reposition the company with ads they describe as “cheeky”.

The ad causing conniptions this week referred to the NZ government’s initiative to reduce the number of old refrigerators in the country — pointing to their new refrigerator range and saying “Government says fridges are better younger — just like women really”.

The ad has caused outrage, especially among NZ women, who make the majority of household shopping decisions. An email petition has been doing the rounds, asking shoppers to boycott the chain. And after concerned consumers contacted Brockovich, she called the parent company and demanded the ad be retracted. The head of Noel Leeming Group, Andrew Dutkiewicz — who said the company received 23 complaints, has complied, apologised and was quoted as saying “I can understand why some people were offended so we’ll just put that in our book of learning.” (Gee, you’d think that living in the 21st century, they might have already picked up on how not to offend the majority of their customers.)

Brockovich told the NZ Herald that Bond & Bond promised it would not run the ad, or any other that was in poor taste, again. That’s good because they’ve crossed the line more than once — another distasteful ad ran several weeks ago in an African-themed mailer, referring to a vacuum cleaner and calling it “The next best thing to a slave.”