This year, Sweden's favourite Christmas tradition got a gender swap

Via Adland

Adland shared this seasonal Swedish mailer for retailer ICA featuring a boy in the traditional roleplay of female martyr Santa Lucia, and a girl as the traditionally male stjärngosse (a star boy). 

Åsk 'dabitch' Wäppling writes, "For people in the States: This is the equivalent to a boy homecoming queen. Not a transgender homecoming queen. Just a boy homecoming queen."

Personally, I like it. There is no mention of how traditionalists in Sweden reacted. dabitch quips, "They might still be in shock."

Stinky PSA campaign causes a real-life gas leak panic

Via NY Daily News

Here's a funny one.

According to the Great Falls Tribune, reports of a major natural gas leak in the Montana city's business section caused the evacuation of several buildings yesterday.

The cause? Scratch-n-sniff direct mailers designed to educate the public about what a gas leak smells like:

Nick Bohr, general manager at Energy West, said workers at the company were cleaning out some storage areas and discarded several boxes of scratch-and-sniff cards that it sent out to customers in the past to educate them on what natural gas smells like. 

“They were expired, and they were old,” Bohr said. “They threw them into the Dumpsters.” 

When the cards were picked up by sanitation trucks and crushed, “It was the same as if they had scratched them.”

Natural gas doesn't have a detectable odour of its own, but has a chemical (t-butyl mercaptan or thiophane) added to give it a foul "rotten egg" smell so that people can detect leaks.

Via Philly.com

Energy West had been distributing the PSA cards to customers as part of a safety awareness campaign.

“In a sense, it worked the way it was supposed to,” commented Nick Bohr, general manager at Energy West, as part of the company's apology for the inconvenience. They also mentioned that there was no public safety or environmental concern about putting the expired cards in the trash.

If you want stinky PSA stickers of your own, you can order them by the thousand here.

Tip via The Consumerist

Family Guy demands that "Brentwood Jews" give show an Emmy #FdAdFriday

According to Hollywood Reporter, this direct mailer went out to Emmy voters. While it is in character for the 21st Century animated version of Archie Bunker, reactions were mixed.

"Wow," responds one Brentwood TV producer, "if Family Guy was that funny on a regular basis, it might get nominated." 

Another producer, who lives nearby in Pacific Palisades, has her own review. "It's so heavy-handed," she says, "it's light on funny."

Yet another adds: "While I think Family Guy is a genuinely funny show, we all -- including this 'Brentwood Jew' -- need to think twice about this kind of humor. Stereotyping any particular ethnic group is just not cool and can lead others (with the wrong intentions) to feel a certain license to take shots. Surely Seth [MacFarlane] has better stuff than this."

It's one of those tricky issues, isn't it? Family Guy is supposedly "making fun of that kind of thing" with its outrageously offensive gags. And yet the concern that it gives licence to less... umm... artistic(?) racism is also valid.

And would it make a difference if MacFarlane were Jewish, rather than possessing the ultra-WASPy pedigree of "Scottish, Irish, English and Welsh ancestry, partly by way of Canada, and his ancestors include William Brewster, who travelled to America on the Mayflower"?

Horrible DM piece of the day (no, make that YEAR)

This is a mailer from The U.S. Senate Federal Credit Union, a member-owned financial services organization regulated by the National Credit Union Administration (a U.S. Government agency).

The message is simple: "Planning a boob job for yourself or your chick? Borrow money! (But do it responsibly.)"

How this thing ever got presented, approved, printed and mailed is a true mystery of (what I assume to be) the internal marketing departments of big bureaucracies.

Complaints were swift and vicious.

"I got home from a nice holiday weekend late last night and found this in the mail," Washington, D.C., resident Amber Wobschall told The Huffington Post. "I've really been a lifelong credit union member. I'm also a feminist," she said." So I was very disappointed to find this in my mailbox."

Ms. Wobschall went so far as to put up a Change.org petition, demanding (okay, 'asking'):

...the US Senate Federal Credit Union to acknowledge the inappropriateness of this mailing and make a public apology. 

And here it is, on the front page of their site:

May 30, 2012
To the Membership of the United States Senate FCU: 

It has come to our attention that the imagery and message in a recent marketing direct mail campaign has offended some of our membership. It was not the intention of this marketing campaign to insult, demean or in any way offend anyone in our field of membership. 

The Board of Directors and Senior management personally apologize to the membership of the United States Senate Federal Credit Union for this action. 

The comments and opinions of our members recently received are very important to the Board. We will always value your opinion, membership, and support of the Senate Federal Credit Union. 

We will also work diligently and constantly to keep your confidence in our leadership. 

Yours truly, 

Christopher C. Dey, Board Chairman 

Susan R. Enis, President and Chief Executive Officer 

I would have liked them to explain who, exactly, got fired over this.

But otherwise: Yay activism! Boo sexist jerk design team!