Best Buy Stands by Ad Wishing Muslims "Happy Eid al-Adha"

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A Best Buy (BBY) ad that wished American Muslims a “Happy Eid al Adha” has come under fire from conservatives and Christians, who claim the company stopped saying “Merry Christmas” to its customers in 2006. On RightPundits.com:

… the liberal/PC culture has taken control of Best Buy where they shun the word Christmas yet they are quite willing to extend holiday wishes to Eid al-Adha.

Best Buy is standing by its ad (above). Like The Gap, Best Buy is wrongly accused of not using the word “Christmas” in its advertising. Brandweek:

Best Buy rep Lisa Svac Hawks, however, didn’t agree with the claim, saying: “You will see more of Christmas in our holiday messaging. Christmas will be included in our insert and online. We have ‘Merry Christmas’ on our gift cards, too. In addition. we have developed the Christmas Morning simulator as an online interactive game.”)

… “Best Buy’s customers and employees around the world represent a variety of faiths and denominations. We respect that diversity and choose to greet our customers and employees in ways that reflect their traditions,” she said.

You can read a bunch of anti-Best Buy vitriol on this Best Buy forum. Sample comment:

I don’t consider myself much of a Christian, but I’m really sick of retailers that go out of their way to eliminate any reference to Christmas which is the origin of the holiday in the first place.

Takeaway: Retailers can’t win at Christmastime. If they ignore the holiday — like The Gap was wrongly accused of doing — they are subjected to boycotts by conservatives. If they recognize it, they irk those of us for whom Xmas is not a big deal. And if they mention anyone else’s religion, they’re also targeted for retribution by angry Christians.

And finally: Eid is fairly harmless: Muslims dress up and go to the mosque. Then they sacrifice their best farm animals and distribute meat and food around the community. No poor person is left without food during Eid. The ritual commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son to god. That’s pretty much it. Note that a lot of Christians deride Eid as a “goat-sacrificing festival,” which is different to Xmas’s turkey-sacrificing festival … how?

Tags: Best Buy, Advertisement, Eid, Ritual, Christmas, ad, Jim Edwards

Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.

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1

DISH Network

11/30/09 | Report as spam

RE: Best Buy Stands by Ad Wishing Muslims

At DISH Network, we're definitely not afraid to wish everyone a merry Christmas! We encourage you to check out our latest commercial spot and celebrate Christmas right along with our employees! http://bit.ly/7fWh9p
2

dtaylor_UNT

12/01/09 | Report as spam

RE: Best Buy Stands by Ad Wishing Muslims

You're spot on with your analysis of the no-win situation in which Christian activists place marketers. I would add that the futility of the situation is inherent in the paradoxical nature of their argument.

They decry using an inclusive term just as "Happy Holidays" as being "PC" -- which they define as using language to avoid offending those overly sensitive non-Christians. However, if you don't extend holiday greetings exactly how they want (and, in the case of the Gap, even if you do), they take offense. In fact, if you don't specifically cater to their holiday ("Merry Christmas"), along with the new demand of excluding everyone else's holiday, they are offended.

So unless you use THEIR politically correct language, they are offended -- but they see the problem as retailers using PC language to avoid offending anyone. Therein is the paradox. Retailers shouldn't use PC language, but they must use PC language.

The whole "war on Christmas" nonsense is just petty and childish. Marketers are not "afraid" to wish anyone "Merry Christmas", nor are they overly concerned with offending anyone (other than overly sensitive Christians, anyway). They just want to convey a greeting that includes everyone -- and, yes, "Happy Holidays" includes Christmas -- without assuming that the recipient is Christian.
3

katkit

12/02/09 | Report as spam

RE: Best Buy Stands by Ad Wishing Muslims

Thank you Best Buy for acknowledging all faiths, especially the
forgotten ones. I am a Christian and I am very happy that Best
Buy was brave enough and decent enough to stand up for others.
4

lk510

12/08/09 | Report as spam

RE: Best Buy Stands by Ad Wishing Muslims

I was happy to see that Best Buy chose to stand by their ad knowing that it wasn?t wrong, but I was also disturbed to see how many people were upset by it. Ever since I was little, I knew that, as a Muslim, our holidays would never be as public or as grand as holidays such as Christmas and Easter. It was a given in my childhood that I would have to take off a day from school for Eid, but get a holiday coincidentally on Christmas. In fact when I was younger they used to call it Christmas break instead of now the more Politically Corrected Winter Break. So when I saw Best Buy?s ad wishing us a Happy Eid it made me ecstatic, it made me, as an American- Muslim, feel recognized.
I also think that steps like these will eventually bring peace. Why should there be tension within Americans because they are of a different cultural or religious background? In the end they work together, their children play together, and essentially they shop in the same places. It feels good to be recognized instead of shunned and I thank Best Buy for that and you as the editor for bringing this news to my attention.