"Tempo doesn't want me - I don't want Tempo" is the slogan in the new campaign launched by Na'amat Movement of Working Women and Volunteers calling on women to boycott Tempo Beer Industries (TASE: TMPO) products. The call for a boycott was inspired by billboards by Tempo advertising Goldstar beer with the company's 15 year-old slogan, "Say thanks that you're a man and drink something."
Tempo regards men as the main target market for Goldstar. The creative line of its campaigns has been humorous for years, featuring pictures of men whose main interest is sports, and who are interested in nothing else.
It appears that the new billboard put up by the company recently aroused the anger of Na'amat president Galia Wolloch, who wrote to Tempo chairman Jacques Beer demanding that the advertising line be changed: "In recent years, the Tempo company has chosen to promote its Goldstar brand beer through a series of crude advertisements aimed at glorifying men at the expense of women, who are repeatedly portrayed as weak and ridiculous, or as you put it in your advertisements, 'Say thanks that you're a man.'
"Unfortunately, it appears that your concept of the world is no less distorted, since in Tempo's world, not only are women not a worthy target market; they are also a subject of ridicule for the Israeli man enjoying a sip of beer and giving thanks that he was not made a woman.
"I appeal to you today, after receiving complaints from women traveling on the coastal road who were horrified at the belittling advertisements so proudly put up by company headquarters - advertising consisting entirely of bad taste that has no place in the public square."
Tempo said in response, "Tempo respects every person, regardless of religion, race, or gender. Tempo employs hundreds of women, and regards the status of women in Israel as very important. The advertisement is comical, based on an widely recognized extreme situation in daily Israeli discourse; it laughs with women, not at them. Israeli culture deals extensively with the difference between men and women, and frequently does this humorously. If anyone feels hurt by the advertisement, we apologize; we had no such intention."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 8, 2015
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