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The UK ad industry is enjoying a rare fit of self-righteousness over Heinz's decision to pull this ad after a few hundred complaints from the public, or at least from a well-organised pressure group.

There is a near-universal consensus - evident in the pages of the industry's trade mag Campaign - that Heinz have supinely succumbed to the aggressive lobbying of a bigoted but vocal minority. But why are they so sure that discomfort with male-on-male action is a minority 'issue'? A few commentators refer to such discomfort, contemptuously, as Daily Mail thinking. As if the Mail is some fringe pamphlet read only by the crazed few. To paraphrase David Ogilvy, the consumer isn't stupid. She's a Daily Mail reader. I think most people outside of Soho are probably uneasy with this kind of thing being repeated daily in prime time. Not everyone is as marvelously enlightened as we are.

One Campaign commenter gives the game away when he says "I'm offended that Heinz was forced to take it off. It says a lot more about the British public than it does about the ad or the industry."  The reverse is true of the industry's commentary on this event.