In Ads, the Workers Rise Up … and Go to Lunch
The woman had had enough. Amid ringing phones and clicking keyboards she climbs up on her desk and shouts through her speakerphone: “I have 47 vacation days. That’s insane.”
“Let’s take back our summer!” she yells as she raises a sign over her head with the phrase “Vacation Now” on it. “Who’s with me?” A handful of employees applaud. The rest look away.
The scene, echoing a pivotal sequence in the 1979 film “Norma Rae,” is not a union recruiting pitch but instead is part of a television ad for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, from a campaign called “Take Back Your Summer.” Other big advertisers like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola are also tapping into a sense of frustration among workers to sell products portrayed as minor luxuries.
The jobs report released Friday — showing only 80,000 jobs created in June — reinforced a bleak outlook for the nation’s unemployed. For those lucky enough to have work, the conventional wisdom has been “Keep your head down; don’t make waves.”
But marketers are urging workers to commit small acts of so-called rebellion — like taking a vacation, or going on a lunch break.