WHERE SUCCESSFUL ADVERTISING MEETS LGBT EQUALITY

IKEA International, Bedroom

Members:

In this series that mocks designers, "Van den Puup, Elite Designer" speaks to the camera sitting by the pool with his pooch, in a pink cap and fluffy white robe. (His assistant does Tae Chi in the background.)

With heavy pretension in an indistinct accent, he says, "People ask me, what does it take to design a bedroom that people want to sleep in, recline in, read poetry in?" (Various scenes unfold, where the designer appears with his silent assistant in the woods, a grassy park, running like the boxer Rocky, spinning joyfully on a rocky beach.)

"And I say to them, it takes pain! It takes inspiration!" Sitting in a bubble bath, he shouts "A bed made of soap!" Walking in the woods, he comically smacks his assistant in the face and knocks him over with a tree branch, "It takes accident, it takes intention, and it takes an artist willing to throw himself of the cliff of despair. And climb up the top again!"

"My bedrooms are genius, and for 'zem, I charge £30,000!" His white limo passes an Ikea billboard on the side of the road, and backs up. The price of a full bedroom is £655. The limo's window is rolled down, revealing the horrified faces of the designer and his assistant, whose hand is across his face, jaw open. Van Den Puup makes his trademark squealing scream.

Next, he and assistant (who is protecting the designer's small dog as an infant) are in middle of the roadway, screaming like a mad man at the passing traffic, "Don't look at it! Close your eyes, move away! It's too inexpensive!!"

Although the ad never deals directly in sexuality, at first it may seem to be a classic gay designer stereotype. What takes this ad, and campaign, to the next step is that the humor is not derived primarily on the man as a sissy, but more on his pretension, and occasional outbursts. In some cases, he appears slightly macho (although his silent assistant never does).

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