Coke Under Fire for Dropping Gay Wedding Scene from Irish Ad

A feel-good European ad campaign for Coca-Cola has left many feeling bad in Ireland, where the spot's image of a joyous same-sex wedding has been swapped out for a straight one.

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"Reasons to Believe," the advertisement being seen in the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom (and shown above), shows a string negative moments being offset by uplifting ones-a mom icing a cake, a group of young folks dancing, a newborn getting a kiss on the cheek, and two men celebrating their nuptials. But Ireland's version (below) has cut them out, instead showing a man and woman walking down the aisle.

"Not cool Coca-Cola Ireland!" tweets Dublin Pride 2013. Others Twitter users wrote, "Bad form," "Coca-Cola degrades love with excuse for cutting gay wedding segment from new Ireland ad," "Don't bow to bigotry, Coca-Cola!" and "It sickens me that Coca Cola Ireland removed the gay marriage scene from the ad. In this day and age we should all be proud of diversity."

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The discussion continued on the Facebook for EILE Magazine, which first reported on the omitted scene, on December 29. "Somebody in the marketing department is projecting their own homophobia onto the Irish public," writes Irish gay activist Max Krzyzanowski. "They've either not seen, or discounted the polling data which consistently show support for equal marriage north of 70%. Fail!" But, writes another commenter, "Coca-cola sell sugary drinks, it is not a Human Rights advocacy company and it will never err on the side of political engagement. How about you all start drinking something else?"

Coca-Cola did not respond to requests for comment from Yahoo Shine. But a spokesperson tells the Journal, in Ireland, "The core objective is that the vignettes in the ad resonate with people in each country and that they are truly representative of cultural issues that they are familiar with and value. You will note for example that the St Patrick's Day scene is only included in the Irish version as it is only here that it is truly relevant from a cultural perspective."

The statement continues, "As you rightly say, the wedding images used in the ad for the UK and in other parts of Europe show two men getting married. The reason that this was changed for Ireland is that while civil partnership for gay people is legal, gay marriage currently is not. This will be the subject of a referendum (2015). We wanted each ad to be relevant and valid for its own market."

But according to EILE, the footage of the happy male couple was taken from a short documentary, "Clinton and Callum." Shot by Soda Films, that video depicts the civil partnership ceremony of the men, in Australia, where same-sex marriage also is not legal. "Australia does not have 'Gay marriage,' as the spokesperson calls it, and therefore the scene in question would have been suitable for Ireland," writes EILE's Scott De Buitléir.

The Irish-tailored ad is reminiscent of another recent marketing kerfuffle--that of Ikea removing women from photos in the version of its catalog sent to Saudi Arabia last year. That sparked criticism from Sweden and prompted an apology from the company. More recently, the Gap inspired praise when it stood up to racism-based critiques of its "Make Love" campaign, which featured a Sikh model in one of its posters. Some of the images were defaced in New York, scrawled with messages such as "Please stop driving taxis." The Gap responded by doubling down and changing its Twitter banner photo to that of the controversial ad, prompting a flood of supportive comments.

The move by Coca-Cola, meanwhile, seems to fly in the face of a recently stated goal by Coca-Cola North America, which was to highlight the brand's values of "inclusivity and diversity" as a way to offset its controversial sponsorship of Sochi 2015, according to a recent story in Marketing Week. Coca-Cola has been under pressure for not speaking out against Russia's anti-gay law, which bans the promotion of "non-traditional" relationships to minors. A recent protest at its Atlanta headquarters, in fact, included billboards demanding, "Coca-Cola don't stay bottled up, speak out against Russia's anti-gay laws."

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