Cadbury Adams promises to pull offensive gum ad
21 Oct 07 -- The Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) was pleased to learn recently that Cadbury Adams Canada has agreed to pull their latest Dentyne Ice commercial from television stations and movie theatres by Thanksgiving weekend. Many of our members voiced their concerns over the advertisement to ONA as well as to the company and the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.However, we understand that the ad is still playing at movies theatres in the Toronto area, well past the deadline for its removal. This is very disheartening to ONA and the nurses of this province, who valued their agreement to pull the ad.
ONA is committed to ensuring the image of professional nurses is a positive one and reflects their true value to the health care system and their dedication to the health care needs of their patients. We are deeply distressed to see that the stereotype of a young, good looking nurse dressed in a skimpy uniform and sexually available to her patients at the press of a call button, was still alive and well in the 21st century. There is absolutely no way any nurse would conduct her or himself in such an inappropriate manner with a patient at any time. To suggest otherwise was disrespectful and insulting to nurses, who can literally make a difference between life and death to their patients.
And, as many of our nurses are reaching retirement age, the depiction of a mature nurse as someone quite undesirable to her patient was neither clever nor funny.
We find it tragic that at a time when our country is dealing with a devastating nursing shortage, resulting in horrendous and stressful workloads for our nurses, we are not treating nurses with our utmost respect, especially if we ever hope to attract women and men into the profession in the future.
Sadly, this is not the first time the Cadbury Adams company has used the image of nurses as little more than a sex object to market a product. In 2005, their advertising campaign for Mott’s Calamato used similar advertising tactics, drawing the ire of nurses across the country.
Unfortunately, two years later, they still think that portraying nurses in such a manner is both acceptable and comical.
ONA continues to apply pressure to Cadbury Adams Canada to stop them from using a disrespectful stereotype of nurses for the promotion of their products.