Remember that story about the ice cream company with the advertisement that showed a priest and a nun looking as though they were about to kiss. That ad was banned. Now the same company have an ad showing a pregnant nun eating ice cream? The text under the picture reads “Immaculately conceived” and “Ice cream is our religion”.
It too was pulled after some government bureaucracy in the UK said it was over the line and banned it.
Well…the only ice cream guys wackier than Ben and Jerry are back. The clearly anti-Catholic company is now planning (despite the government ban) to show their latest advertisement along Pope Benedict’s route in England.
Belfast Telegraph reports:
A spokeswoman for Antonio Federici said the company intended to defy the ban by publishing another advert portraying “a continuation of the theme”.
She said: “We intend to defy the ASA’s ban and will publish another advert from the series before the Pope’s visit later this week.
“We are in the process of securing a series of billboards close to and along the planned route of the Pope’s cavalcade around Westminster Cathedral.”…
Defending the banned ad, Antonio Federici said the idea of “conception” represented the development of their ice cream, and their use of religious imagery stemmed from their strong feelings towards their product.
The company said it also wished to “comment on and question, using satire and gentle humour, the relevance and hypocrisy of religion and the attitudes of the church to social issues”.
Come on. Give me a break. The “conception” word represented the development of the ice cream? Really? If you’re going to be in our face with your anti-Catholic ads please just jump ugly on us all the way. Don’t pretend. Don’t lie. We don’t care about your stupid ice cream. Or your ads.
But if the UK is so far gone that demonizing the Catholic Church will help them sell ice cream that says more about the UK than it does about ice cream or the Church.
Exit thought: So far have so many nuns fallen that I think many Catholics would just be pleased that the nun decided to keep the baby.
September 16, 2010 at 6:09 am
May want to disable whatever rpc.blogrolling.com is for a bit, when I try to load your page it pops up a warning– generally devolves into flatly blocking the site in less than a day.
September 16, 2010 at 3:13 pm
that's terrible! How sensational. But I guess if your ice cream is that bad that you have to resort to nun's to sell it…
September 16, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Awe, c'mon Matt. There is truly a resurgence of good, holy, devout, orthodox Catholic nuns. Yes, we've had a bad spell, but I think the response from that is going to be inspirational to us all! I'm not sure what the situation with religious is in the UK, but here, things are looking up. =)
As for the commercial, my prayer is that the ice cream company soon won't need to advertise anymore–because they're out of business.
September 16, 2010 at 5:22 pm
Just read the amazingly dumb Financial Times articles about the Pope's visit: anti-Catholic sentiment is probably at it's strongest in the UK.
Which is sad, because I think that may be the only part of Anglicanism they have left….
September 17, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Here's an idea: run a counter-ad featuring Italian gelato. Maybe the Pope scooping up s spoonful. A couple of cardinals maybe. "We eat. We pray. We LOVE our gelato!"
It could put those ice cream bigots out of business.