In my life as a “professional blogger” (and I use that term loosely), I write about cars. Much of my work focuses on vehicle technology, auto marketing, and LGBT-related news. Yesterday, a reader pointed me to this ad from Hyundai, which combines two of the three:
From where I sit, that looks a little odd. Why?
1. For starters, Hyundai is one of the world’s only major automakers that isn’t considered LGBT-friendly. (Neither is its sister company, Kia.) What are implicitly lesbian characters doing in an ad from a company that doesn’t even offer benefits to its employees’ same-sex partners? I dunno.
2. It’s also odd because if the ad IS meant to appeal to LGBT consumers, it seems way off-base. I mean, I’m a gay guy (obviously), so maybe some of you ladies have a different take, but to me, the clip seems about half a pillow fight away from straight male porn. The creative team should probably be tarred and feathered.
On the other hand:
1. The production values are fairly high (though not what I’d call extravagant).
2. The license plate is cleanly blacked-out, which is something that a student ad or other fake commercial might not do so well.
3. The pre-roll cites Bensimon Byrne, a legit Canadian agency.
I’ve reached out to a media rep from Hyundai asking for clarification, but in the meantime, if any of you Canadians saw this in rotation (it would’ve run in early 2010, to judge from the date stamp), lemme know.
sturtle [dot] com 
Hi, Richard–
I followed your and Jonno’s blogs some years ago and we corresponded a bit, particularly during your evacuation during Katrina. Then things got very busy for me and I wasn’t keeping up with bloggers the way I wanted to.
Today I thought about you and wondered if sturtle still existed, found it and saw a tag for adoption, which I read from beginning to end. I was fascinated because I had adopted two baby girls (not biologically related) from Korea and raised them as a single gay father. They are now grown into magnificent women and have given me a couple of terrific sons in law. You write very well about your story and there were points of correspondence as my younger daughter’s siblings in Korea eventually made contact which led to some nice exchange of photos and family history.
Things seem to be going well for you and Jonno (the husband and I just celebrated 14 years) and I will be stopping by regularly. All Best — Will
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Thanks for stopping by, Will — glad to see you again! I had no idea you’d adopted. You should definitely check out this piece about adoption in the age of Facebook from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/fashion/i-found-my-birth-mother-through-facebook.html. That’s how I found my own bio-dad.
Catch you later…
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Hello, Richard. I’m in Vancouver and this ad definitely ran on TV in Canada. I clearly recall my partner and I looking at other quizzically when we saw it.
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