‘Luge’, a suggestive spot from the Canadian Institute for Diversity and Inclusion, was the most-shared ad online during the first week of Sochi’s Winter Olympic Games and in 10 days racked up an impressive 5.5 million YouTube Views
The suggestive ad, created by Rethink, features two figures in Lycra rocking backwards and forwards in close proximity as they prepare for a luge run.
Shared 286,278 in the second week of February, the ad features Human league’s ‘Don’t You Want Me’ and features the endline ‘”The Games have always been a little gay. Let’s keep them that way.’
The spot spearheads CIDI’s ‘Let’s Keep The Games Gay’ campaign – an initiative which aims to encourage people to show support for the equality of all athletes by changing their Facebook profile picture to the silhouette of two lugers forming the iconic equality symbol.
Comment
This gently mocking Sochi equal rights protest campaigns might not make Putin happy, but certainly makes most viewers smile.
‘The discrimination in Russia is unacceptable,” said Michael Bach, founder and CEO of the CIDI. ‘As an organization, we want to show our support, especially for the athletes competing at the Olympics in Sochi.’
The campaign’s success, along with several other parallel Winter Olympic protest initiatives, may provide further fuel to drive IOC rethink about the future approach to and form of the Games.
Both the event organisers, the IOC and sponsor brands have all come under fairly heavy fire not only from equal rights campaigners and consumers, but even from other brands (such as Google).
With so much backlash surrounding organiser and sponsor support for the Games due to discriminatory legislation banning gay ‘propaganda’ towards children in the host nation, surely the IOC must structurally and strategically respond in some way.
Links
CIDI ‘Luge’ YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=effb2JYiKXM
CIDI Facebook
CIDI Twitter:
@CIDI_ICDI
@rethinkcanada
https://twitter.com/rethinkcanada
