Why controversial advertising

The idea here is to hire a third-party agency that can conduct a focus group for you. For a small fee or other type of compensation, a group of 10 to 14 individuals will gather to share their thoughts on a particular topic. In this case, it would be your advertisement. The benefit? You can always make changes. Consider all possible outcomes. Subscribe to our newsletter for more on Content Marketing and Artificial Intelligence updates. Trusted by leading brands. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time.

For information on how to unsubscribe, as well as our privacy practices and commitment to protecting your privacy, check out our Privacy Policy. See Demo. A controversial advertisement. So why would we want to purposely offend, or risk offending, our audience? The Pros and Cons There is always going to be a calculated risk when it comes to putting a controversial ad out into the public for your current—and potential—customers to see. I Want to Run my Controversial Ad.

Now what? This tactic did not pay off for the brand , the agency involved, or the hope of bringing attention to a natural disaster. The aim of any campaign should be to attract positive attention to your brand, building a positive reputation. Controversial ads only work if they work for the brand. A campaign is made for your audience , consider what they want to see and what feelings you ultimately want to convey.

The company created a billboard campaign that included his social security number to demonstrate just how safe their services really were. A bright idea to clearly demonstrate the benefits of your service, right? Davis ended up being the victim of identity theft 13 times in 4 years. The message sent out in the ad was clearly deceptive. Revealing their use of false, unethical ads. We get the point of some controversial ads BUT do not blindly trust your own product when making a billboard-sized statement.

Continuously test your product to ensure it is providing the value you claim to your customers. Communicate the value of your product and service and maybe avoid lying to current and future customers. PepsiCo has not typically been known for producing bad ads, but this one was a total misfire.

Released in , the Pepsi ad made the headlines for piggybacking of the Black Lives Matter movement to promote their product. That powerful sip of Pepsi puts an end to racism, police brutality, and probably some other unidentified social issues.

The ad was pulled by the brand after the marketing campaign was condemned for trivializing Black Lives Matter. The company later released a public apology. There are two ways to approach a problematic social issue.

One way, which this campaign demonstrates ever so subtly, is taking advantage of the social issue to promote a product. On the other hand, supporting a social movement with a clear message is a whole different thing.

Strive for the latter if you want to avoid being publicly shamed for promoting your brand with controversial ads. Pepsi was widely discredited, hurting purchase consideration for the brand for years. Increasing sales when promoting a product is usually the end goal. In the end, throwing your reputation under the bus while you are at it is not the best idea.

Pepsi believed that capitalizing on a social movement in order to make short-term gains was more important than taking the time to think through their strategy. Not something we recommend. Mastercard made a statement during the World Cup that with every goal Lionel Messi and Neymar Jr scored, the company would donate 10, meals to children in Latin America and the Caribbean. The tactic to gamify starvation was condemned by people, gaining negative attention from professionals in marketing and PR for its tone-deaf attitude.

After a while, Mastercard dropped the campaign , just as well since the two stars only scored three goals between them. A lack of judgement on their behalf in an attempt to gain publicity.

Social issues are a tough area. If you are taking advantage of them to promote your business, just skip it and find a better solution. Be authentic and sincere. Your brand image, PR team, and the world will thank you.

Nivea pulled the plug on the controversial ad immediately. How the racist connotations failed to surface during the creative process is surprising, to say the least. For Nivea, a wholesome family-friendly product, the damage in perception was huge…. Sensor your content and message. If you operate an international business, the unethical operations of those branches can still damage your brand. No company exists in a bubble anymore. This series of controversial ads was only used in Germany but gained global social media attention for its repulsive message.

Social media users boycotted the brand, demanding an apology and that the campaign be pulled. Hours later Reebok did just that, apologizing for the campaign ever appearing at all.

A brand should never give its audience bad advice. Locker room talk, boys will be boys, and all that BS does not belong in marketing or anywhere, for that matter. Encouraging your audience is a great way to build trust and speak to individuals.

Limiting that encouragement to doing good, helping others, and staying healthy is an even better approach. Ensuring that your messaging aligns with the values of your target customers is critical in a successful ad campaign. The video ad is loud, sweaty, gooey, confusing, and not appetizing at all. It is so bad that you have to watch it. As beautiful as childbirth is and as delicious as those peanut butter pieces are, the combination of the two, is just so wrong.

What was the marketing objective here? What sick mind dreamt up this twisted concept? When constructing a campaign, there are a few key questions you should try to answer , who is this for?

What action do I want people to take? Learn from this example, undoubtedly the desired action was not for people to put down the product and go vomit. This time a video commercial starting with a group of men unable to stay focused on their work as beautiful women in revealing clothing surround them.

As the men mindlessly stare at these women they become increasingly heated. As this ad falls into the banned ads category, a copy of the ad was not available.

The undertones of victim-blaming are paralleled beautifully with the implication of sexual assault. The brand uses sexist messages and stereotypes to sell its product.

In fact, AXE was well-known for its tasteless marketing and unethical ads before the release of this specific ad campaign. The number of banned ads produced by AXE is unknown, but the fact that there is more than one hints that the brand might be better off trying a different approach.

In , AXE finally gave up its commitment to sexism, promoting its reformed strategy in the hopes of earning new customer segments. Admitting to your mistakes and changing direction may work better than repeating the same marketing tactic over and over again, expecting different results. The ad begins with a bar. The bartender notices a light-skinned lady at the end of the bar.

He slides a beer her way. The beer slides past more than a few black people before finally stopping at the light-skinned lady. Seriously, who is qualifying this stuff for distribution?! For Heineken, this bad advertisement qualifies for the racist ads category, displaying clear symbolic segregatation between black and white people, including reference to race in the slogan.

Pay attention to signs and symbols. Semiotics in advertising focuses on the non-verbal symbols that spark emotion. Unspoken symbolism can grab more attention than what is said.

Consider what might be inferred by your ad before distributing it. Although in this case, paying attention to the written content would have been advisable too. Sprite took over the Joe. What was the message for Sprite and who is the audience here? We think this guy got it right. This ad was no different and featured celebrity fashion icon, Kendall Jenner. Released in , the ad which you can watch above shows Kendall joining a protest outside after removing her black wig and makeup.

She then proceeds to give a can of Pepsi to a police officer during a stand-off who then smiles and the crowd cheers. Kendall Jenner has saved the day, all thanks to Pepsi! The Problem: During the time the advert was released, there were many protests and riots taking place in America over the BlackLivesMatter campaign.

Within 24 hours of releasing the ad, Pepsi faced a lot of criticism from online users over the ad and had to release an official statement while also pulling the ad. The Ad: Nivea is a German skincare brand that is known for manufacturing antiperspirants, face creams, and plenty of other cosmetics. The ad featured a woman wearing a white top while looking out the window with the slogan in bold blue letters.

This ad was just one of a number of other ads from the same campaign to promote their new product. The Problem: As you can probably see from the advert above, the choice of words for this campaign was very poorly chosen.

To make things worse, they specifically aimed the campaign at people in the Middle East which caused many people to call the advert racist. In addition to this, many right-wing groups started to promote the advert with some going as far as saying Nivea was the official alt-right antiperspirant. Eventually, Nivea released a statement about the ad and immediately withdrew it after realizing the wording and context caused offense to many viewers.

The Ad: Similar to Nivea, Dove is a popular skincare brand that targets numerous countries around the world with their moisturizers, deodorants and hair care products. As you can probably tell, there are many things wrong with this advert.

The Problem: The controversy caused by the advert is as clear as day. The campaign was instantly removed from Facebook while the owners of the brand Unilever, released a statement apologizing for the advert. The scary thing about this advert is that it must have been approved at some point during the marketing process, which makes it worrying that nobody thought it would cause offense. In they came under fire for a similar image showing the transition of a black woman to a white woman after using their lotion.

A bad ad campaign can leave you with a negative reputation for years. Not because they were good, but the complete opposite.