By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
A Super Bowl ad for a vacation rental company that featured a baby being smashed against a window has outraged parents across the country.
USA Today is reporting that the ad, sponsored by HomeAway, Inc., depicts an unhappy family in a cramped hotel room who accidentally launch their baby up into the air where it smashes against a window. The ad can also be found on the company’s website where viewers can customize it by uploading their own photos, and are given the option to make the baby crash through the window rather than smash up against it.
Since the ad aired, countless parents have complained about it, saying it is never funny to make a joke out of hurting a child.
Patrick Donohue, founder of the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, told USA Today that he contacted HomeAway immediately after the ad ran on Sunday night to demand that it be pulled.
“It’s a gratuitous act of violence against an infant child, advertised to a demographic that is the number one cause of harm to innocent babies,” says Donahue whose infant daughter, Sarah Jane, was permanently disabled during her first week of life after she was shaken by a baby nurse.
“This is just disgusting. They should be ashamed of themselves. By God, we are going to make sure that this company pulls this ad.”
Donahue said it was especially dangerous to air the ad during a male-oriented show such as the Super Bowl because 80 percent of those who shake or batter infants are men.
Eileen Buesing, a spokeswoman for HomeAway, said after the Super Bowl: “It was not our intent to offend anyone with our commercial. It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, but simply attempts to highlight the stress created when families squeeze into a single hotel room.”
In a press release issued before the Super Bowl, HomeAway said the ad was created by Austin-based Vendor, Inc. They describe it as a “humorous chain reaction” caused when a frustrated family doesn’t have enough hotel space, causing a baby to be “accidentally launched into the air, where it ultimately smashes up against the glass of the hotel room simulator before sliding slowly to the floor.”
The ad also flashes the words “test baby.”
The ad was posted online before the game in order to generate “buzz,” said chief executive officer Brian Sharples.
“The buzz can be positive or negative, as long as there’s buzz,” Sharples told the Austin American Statesman.
“We used the test baby scene to create a ‘Super Bowl-worthy’ moment that breaks through the clutter of so many ads,” Sharples said. “While everyone loves babies and wouldn’t want to see a real infant get mistakenly flung into the air, we hope viewers will get a good laugh from our test baby’s unfortunate flight. The comic situation is used to highlight the fact that families, particularly those with children, could use a little extra space when traveling.”
The problem, according to Donahue, is that children are most likely to be harmed in situations where parents are frustrated – which could be why the incidents of Shaken Baby Syndrome have nearly doubled since the onset of the recession in 2007.
“I work at Children’s Medical Center, and see badly hurt kids every day,” said Laurie Holloway, a communications specialist in Dallas, to USA Today. “While the ad was meant to be entertaining, a baby bouncing off of a window simply isn’t funny, despite the recovery attempt of saying ‘test baby.’ The company could have made the same point if someone had caught the child before it hit or, better yet, if they’d left that part out completely.”
Mary Perry of Denton, Texas, said she was turned off by both the HomeAway ad, as well as a commercial for Groupon, which featured actor Timothy Hutton making light about the political oppression of Tibet.
“There just seems to be a huge disconnect between what’s appropriate and what’s not,” Perry says. “I get dark humor. … With so much child abuse and cruelty in the world, this spot was just not funny and way off-mark. I get that the baby wasn’t supposed to be real. Doesn’t matter, still inappropriate.”
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