I find it a questionable marketing decision to use a shill who is on the record for saying she doesn’t use the product being advertised. That’s usually failed in the past…
Although Mila might find getting that glass to the baby mighty uncomfortable.
I like Kunis quite a bit and cannot imagine any endorsement causing me to change my drinking/eating habits.
That said, the debate this thread is designed to raise seems extremely silly to me, what idiot thinks they should pull the ad just because Mila is now pregnant?
The case that comes to mind for me was Michael Jackson and Pepsi. Wasn’t it generally known among his more devout fans that Jackson wouldn’t touch the stuff? Heck, I knew, and I didn’t even like the guy.
The ads should be yanked as the idea of sitting around drinking bourbon with that chick is too intriguing to handle! 
It was a very successful campaign for both Pepsi and Jackson. What Jackson did or did not drink was irrelevant. The point of the ads was to emphasize Pepsi as ‘The choice of a new generation’, featuring Madonna along with Jackson and others. Even when Jackson’s hair caught fire while filming a commercial it increased publicity for both him and the product and strengthened the association between the two.
Some “reporter” wrote a very short opinion piece, and didn’t even spell the name of the town where Beam Inc. is based correctly. Whatever “tone” he seems to convey is invalid as he’s shown himself to be an idiot.
I’m sure it was, even if Jackson never tried the product, and we have no reason to assume Kunis ever drank Jim Beam, before or during her pregnancy, just because she was paid to endorse it.
In the Jim Beam commercials, Mila Kunis plays the role of Mila Kunis: Jim Beam drinker. I think it’s tacky in the extreme to link her real life self to her advertising persona.
I’ve quoted three such idiots upthread. It seems obvious to me that there exists at least some segment of the population that believes because the actress is now pregnant, the ads become inappropriate. I agree that’s silly, and inviting anyone who could defend that view to debate the issue was the point of this thread.
Given the push in recent years to condemn drinking while pregnant, it’s not really shocking that someone is going to feel uncomfortable with this - even if it’s not perfectly rational. Pregnancy+alcohol=bad. So this has got to be bad, right?
eta: just looked at the Jim Beam website. They make you attest to being drinking age before you can look at their site. Maybe they should also make you attest to not being pregnant. lol.
Which of those 3 “idiots” said the ads should be pulled? In the last one, the writer refers to “some people”. Who are these people? Are they actual people he interviewed, people he imagined might exist or people who don’t exist, but the writer just made up in order to gain some mileage from fake outrage?
How are we to know?
Okay, I’ll bite. Absent some explicit indication from Kunis that she does not support alcohol consumption by pregnant mothers, some hapless soul may be confused and start guzzling Jim Beam to help her baby develop. Then the baby will have fetal alcohol syndrome, and die. That will be bad.
I tried to work in a link to Tennessee, given the recent drug-baby legislative kerfuffle, but it turns out Jim Beam is produced in Kentucky.
Exactly. All three articles so far say something like “oops, bad timing” or “Some might think this is bad”. Not one says “I think this ad should be pulled”.
When a writer pens the line, “Nobody wants to see a pregnant woman holding up a glass of the hard stuff because it sends the wrong message to people,” we can at least infer that the writer himself is in the category. If not, he would exclude himself in some way: “Almost nobody…” or “Nobody, expect perhaps this author…”
I have no idea why you are continuing to suggest that this sentiment doesn’t exist, John, but it’s extraordinarily weak sauce. I quoted an article that explicitly said nobody wants to see a pregnant woman holding up a glass of the hard stuff because it sends the wrong message to people, and said it while discussing Mila Kunis and her Jim beam campaign. How you are going to spin that as being being some imaginary fake person is beyond me; why you desperately wish to keep this sentiment in the realm of imaginary is even more mysterious.
So, no acknowledgement that you were wrong about the 3 “idiots”. Ok, duly noted, but you were wrong.
Is she actually pregnant in the ads? If not, then “no one wants to see a pregnant woman…” is not relevant.
How many more examples would be necessary to make my case that this criticism is in play, exists, and is being advanced by non-imaginary people, John?
You’re not getting it. They just haven’t finished the roll out of their new “Get Her Drunk Enough and She’s Yours” ad campaign.
Regards,
Shodan
To me, that says: Don’t make any more commercials while you’re pregnant, not “pull the existing commercials”.
I already said it would be a bad idea to have her visibly pregnant and shilling for booze.
What. The. Hell.
The actual point is that she’s NOT pregnant in the ads, but is pregnant in real life. The rational position is, as you say, her current pregnancy is not relevant.
But the examples I am quoting are offering a different perspective: that it IS relevant.
Why, in your estimation, did the author of that article say, “No one wants to see a pregnant woman holding up a glass of the hard stuff because it sends the wrong message to people?”
If it’s not relevant to Kunis, in the author’s view, why the hell did the author include the sentence in the article about Kunis?