Quebec brokerage Via Capitale pulled a TV ad recently after it enraged members of the transgender community in the province.
The ad used a humorous tone to raise a parent’s sex change as one of the reasons that could lead a family to decide to sell its house.
It was one of six unconventional spots featuring a guitar-playing broker, a character created 13 years ago when the brokerage was known as La Capitale.
The ads highlighted various modern but out-of-the-ordinary situations that could lead people to sell their property, such as infidelity (your wife cheated with the next door neighbour), a 46-year-old child finally being forced to move out, people waiting for inheritance money that never came (grandma left her estate to the gardener), unforeseen pregnancy and debts owing to sketchy people. (“You tried to settle your debts … but it didn’t work and they know where you live”).
But it was the ad in which the guitar-playing broker intones “papa est devenu une maman” (pop became a mom) as a reason for selling that caught the ire of Michelle Blanc.
Blanc, an ecommerce consultant and well-known personality in the trans community, saw the ad while watching Les Pays d’en haut, a popular Radio-Canada TV series.
Blanc turned to Twitter and Facebook to call the “so-called” humorous ad “a masterpiece of bad taste.” It showed “a disgusting lack of tact” and capitalized on the drama faced by trans people in their lives, she said.
Blanc said the ad made two major mistakes – using the “indefensible stereotype” to imply that a sex change automatically results in family breakup and the tendency to blame everything on the person who changes sex.
Many in the transgender community shared Blanc’s indignation. A Twitter backlash began and the hashtag #Boycotte ViaCapitale was launched.
But the controversy was resolved after Via Capitale president and CEO David Martin called Blanc to apologize about the ad. He announced it was being pulled and that the company was making a $3,000 donation to the Association des transsexuel(le)s du Québec, which helps trans people in the province.
Martin noted on the broker’s Facebook site that a parent’s change of gender is a realistic situation that was discussed “with the respect that it deserves, without judgement and with the tone that characterizes our advertising communications.” He added, “We thought that in 2017, it was healthy to discuss such subjects openly. That said, some people expressed discomfort or displeasure. We would like to reiterate publicly our sensitivity and respect for them, their reality and their opinion. In this regard, we have chosen to withdraw this message.”
Blanc expressed satisfaction with the company’s reaction.
However, Sophie Durocher, a columnist for the Montreal daily Le Journal de Montréal, called the situation greatly overblown, asking: “Is it homophobia every time we comment on a homosexual?”
After TV series like Transparent and Orange is the New Black, “it was normal that the next step would be to integrate the transgender reality into the world of advertising.”
When you become mainstream instead of being marginalized you will sometimes be the object of a joke, she said.
Montreal advertising agency Alfred, which created the campaign, also weighed in on the controversy on its website.
The agency said it chose to include gender transition in the campaign and treat it like any other major life change.
“We never wanted to be degrading or offensive, quite the contrary. We believe that including this theme in our messages would contribute to its acceptance.”
The agency apologized to all who felt hurt by the execution and saluted the courage of those who undergo gender transition. We “hope that at least the discussions generated will contribute to advancing perceptions,” Alfred said.
