Granite Bay, Calif., resident and senior citizen Randee Reidy is raising a stink over a recent ad for Procter & Gamble's Gain laundry detergent that associates grandmothers with a stink that's slightly more literal.
The ad, which appeared in the Sacramento Bee, claims Gain makes clothes smell "garden-fresh, not grandmotherly." It included a side-by-side photo comparison of a bag of potpourri, captioned "Smells like Mee Maw," and a bottle of Gain, which apparently "Smells like Yee Haw!"
As a grandmother—whose grandkids call her mee-maw—Reidy was offended twice over.
So she started a grassroots campaign to shame P&G, sharing her feelings with the editor of the Sacramento Bee, her local congressperson, state senator and even Hillary Clinton.
It didn't help that Reidy initially thought the bag of potpourri was actually a bag of garbage. "It doesn't really matter whether it's a bag of garbage, laundry or potpourri," she tells the Huffington Post."It indicates that grandmothers smell and the smell needs to be fixed somehow by using Gain laundry detergent. That's why it's offensive to me."
P&G aubsequently apologized to Reidy and released this statement. "The ad is offensive and does not represent the views of P&G or the Gain brand. This was developed by a local agency and only ran in the Bay-area Sacramento region, and we are working with the agency to stop any future running of this ad."
The effort invites plenty of other jokes (which we won't get into here), but Reidy's outrage is understandable. Insinuating that a "grandmotherly" smell is universally unpleasant is not only unkind but lacks smarts ... especially when the proposed alternative is smelling like whatever "Yee Haw!" is.
The complete ad appears below.