DaimlerChrysler, Son
A young man walks into the room where his father is working on an enormous model of a battlefield, and blurts out that he's gay.
Dad looks up and the scene is paused as a computer window opens up over his face that reads: "Adjust Dad's attitude" with a scroll bar that ranges from "hostile" to "supportive." The arrow slides the bar over to supportive and clicks off the box.
The scene resumes and that father says, "You know, there's a guy down at the plant that has a gay son about your age. I think you two would like each other." He turns to his son, who smiles with disbelief and says, "Thanks."
The narrator then says, "Wow, that was painless. Like giggo.com, where you take control of buying a car..."
The campaign for giggo.com (a unit of DaimlerChrysler's Mercedes Financing Group but acquired by PeopleFirst.com in September 2000) is mostly about unexpected outcomes that are "painless." This is a perfect example of how coming-out stories are innocuously making their way into commercials. Though there is no relationship to the product here at all, the advertiser puts a pleasant spin on the outcome.
As its TV commercial hit, Giggo.com also began reaching out to the gay market online. Unfortunately, this commercial barely aired in a few markets in the U.S. (more widely in Canada) because of a fear of controversy over its subject matter.
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