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Every country has its own unique style of advertising. This reflects not only the country’s market structure, but also its media landscape, legislation, and competitive position. But most importantly, it reflects culture. How do people think about morality, humor, ethical issues, gender roles, and the vulnerability of young people? What’s the situation in Germany?

After Oldest, Dutch, Chinese, and Belgian rainbows, now a look at the Germanic region. I’ve found at least 65 examples of TV commercials and online videos, which I’ve posted on my YouTube channel. That’s quite a lot: remarkably, considerably more than in the Netherlands (49, many of which are reels).

Legislation

When I was given Germany as a sales manager in the 1990s, the legislation on advertising and publicity was very strict. The Ombudsman told me – and I quote – that even the “dumber consumer” had to be able to understand everything: discounts, loyalty points, promotions, offers. And while in the Netherlands the common thread for rainbow marketing is “casual,” in Germany, it often focuses on “humor,” especially in the beginning. This defuses a sensitive topic, which it still was back then.

NB: humor is fun, humor is laughter. But it’s also personal, and it can be quite risky, especially when using rainbow themes. See also my article “Laughing with the Heaumeaux: Gay Humor in Advertising.”

How It Began

“Gay marriage”* only became legal in Germany in 2017; 16 years after the Netherlands, and even two years after the US. That’s often a litmus test of what advertisers are (going to) do. But when it comes to “Marketing the Rainbow,” Germany has quite a long history. It began back in 1996, when the American commercial “No Smint No Kiss,” featuring two gay couples, aired on TV in Germany. While that commercial was still American, German rainbow-themed ads soon followed. Some examples.

IKEA – Sofa

“Smint” may have been a few years ahead of IKEA, but good old IKEA ran a short spot in 1999 in which two men are “caught” in the showroom.

Iglo

Shortly after, Iglo ran a whole campaign featuring two rather effeminate men (beware: not everyone can say that!), who show how festive a relationship can be through delicious cooking. They’re quite lively and approachable. We see Train, Penne Gorgonzola, Country, and here is Normal Man:

The exaggerated feminine side of their characters is meant to show that they are truly different people—not easily confused—and also role models. Because “they are trendsetters”…

The brand was still part of the Unilever family at the time.

Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn’s 2016 commercial was a turning point. An advertising expert wrote: “The film that transformed a traditional state-owned company into a brand with attitude.”

The railways presented us with a striking video called The Fan. The commercial, by BBDO Berlin, promoted the 25th anniversary of the ICE trains and tells the story of a dedicated football fan who travels everywhere by train to follow his favorite club (or player?). He’s such a fan, it seems, that he keeps a photo of himself and the player in his apartment and is emotionally involved in every match. Only at the end does it become clear why—when he takes the train to meet the player at the station and they walk away hand in hand. The slogan is “Connects more than A and B.”

I think the intention is very good, but DB still didn’t want to take any chances: the two men meet on the platform after a long separation, and they… embrace? Okay, it was a deep embrace, but not a kiss. A pain in the ass.

The film, directed by Matt Smukler of Soup Films, went live on June 1st, ahead of the 2016 European Championships, and has garnered over 2.2 million views on YouTube and over 4.1 million on Facebook. It was nominated for a Lion.

Burger King – Whopper Diamond

Burger King celebrated the legalization of gay marriage* in Germany with this video. They turned Whoppers into diamonds!

“This is for all true lovers: see how we’ve turned a Whopper into real diamonds, as a burning symbol of love – for a very special occasion.” Beautiful, original, timely, and relevant.

Google Pixel

Google had several videos (in both senses) for their Pixel phone. One clip is a short story about Hannah and her girlfriend, another features a gay couple with a child—and then we’re back to the Dutch approach:

The clip has already racked up over 25,000 views and an incredible number of comments: 217. That’s normally maybe 10 or 20 for such a number (except for eHarmony, which managed to persuade a whopping 1,230 detractors to add a comment in 16 seconds with Here for Real Love).

Here too, the comments were predominantly very negative, from “I’ll never buy a Google phone again” and “This device is disabled” to simply the stupid statement “pedophiles.” Others responded by calling the commenters (often hidden behind names like JB-po3rb) Nazis. About an ad…

But then there was a second video in this series, called Reminder—a kind of bumper. In it, we see a father with his child, in a touching resting pose. The voiceover is whispered so as not to wake the child. Beautiful, isn’t it? And you only know this father has a male partner if you’ve also seen the main ad. So the vile comments stay away.

And furthermore…

there were also some great contributions from Vodafone (Gigasharing and Gigakombi), a whole series from Douglas (including a very special Dressing Room and Christmas in 2020) and a similar atmospheric image from H&M (Moments in Between), a lot of diversity from Zalando (including Activists of Optimism) and of course Coca-Cola Zero.

Finally

Diversity in MarCom is still causing quite a stir. Now that an opinion on this apparently has had to be expressed all the way to the White House – in that case, devastating – it remains important for the six-step customer journey From Representation to Respect. Unfortunately, we’ve taken another step backward. But in Germany, I see them going forward: humorously, casually, or emphatically.

* I always put this in quotation marks because it’s identical to heterosexual marriage, but when it was introduced in the Netherlands in 2001, it was officially called “opening up civil marriage to same-sex couples,” which isn’t quite so simple to use.

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