Recently, a number of ads have been the subject of controversy on both sides of the Atlantic. Ads for candy bars, casual dining restaurants, and mobile phones have all offended people, for rather different reasons. It makes me wonder who really benefits from the resultant furor. Is it the advertiser or the outraged?
The ad pulled by Mars actually caused little controversy in the U.K. where it aired. A male speedwalker in tight yellow shorts is subject to a spray of Snickers bars fired out of a machine gun by Mr. T, who derides the speedwalker as "a disgrace to the man race." The ad, which closes with the tagline "Snickers. Get Some Nuts," created a storm of controversy in the United States for allegedly condoning violence against gays.
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I have to say that the whole episode has me perplexed. Just what is it that marks Mr. T’s target as gay? Is it the blond hair, the yellow shorts or the act of speedwalking? If it’s the latter, will opposing protest groups call for a broadcasting ban on speedwalking events from the Beijing Olympics because it encourages people to be gay? Or is it Mr. T’s tagline that is at fault? Maybe the protesters are under a strange misapprehension about the anatomy of gay males?
Whatever the reasoning, I am amazed that Mars backed down. Most commentators on YouTube appear similarly mystified. As Wonderblog states on the Guardian blog, "Have they actually asked any gay people? Believe me, when we’re offended you’ll know about [it]."
The winners in this case have to be the protesters who managed to make something out of nothing and call attention to their cause.
In South Africa, it was an ad that allegedly portrayed women as sex objects that made the news. The ad for Steers restaurants featured a split screen, one side featuring various scantily clad women and the other images of burgers. A cross on the screen purported to track the viewers’ eyes from one side of the screen to the other, and the movement of the cross seemed to suggest that the burgers were winning their attention. The ad ran for just over two days before the Advertising Standards Authority responded to complaints and it was pulled.
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The problem with this ad is that the stereotypical male would not be able to drag his eyes away from the left-hand side of the screen. Burgers? What burgers? But the ad was not designed to work as a traditional ad, was it? Who cares if any male viewers looked at the burgers? The objective was to get the ad pulled and to create buzz. The video has the classic characteristics (the "L.E.G.S.") of a successful viral ad. These ads tend to possess one or more of the following properties: Laugh-out-loud funny, Edgy, Gripping or Sexy.
In this case I would suggest it was a win for the advertiser.
And finally, here in the U.S., Verizon’s ad for the LG Dare mobile phone generated some unexpected press when animal rights activists claimed that it depicted both an unfair stereotype of pit bulls as vicious, and abuse of animals because the dogs were chained.
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Defending the ads, Brenda Raney, a spokesperson for Verizon Wireless, said, "These are fictional ads, designed to be over the top, to break through the clutter and get our message across."
And surely that is the point? Stereotypes work in advertising because a) they are grounded in (some) truth and b) they are a shortcut to meaning. As OffMAdisonAve points out, you could easily have substituted a Rotweiler or Doberman to similar effect – would the use of those dogs have created the same outcry? As it was, this justification was not enough to stop Verizon pulling the ad, surely a win for the protesters.
OK, that’s my take on these ads - what’s yours? Is the Snickers ad anti-gay? Is the Steers ad sexist? And does the Verizon ad portray cruelty to dumb animals? Or are we the dumb ones for paying heed to both the ads and their attendant protests? Please share your thoughts.
(6 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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August 9th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
The Snickers ad is pure tongue-in-cheek and plays on stereotypes. The runner’s sashaying is over the top (or, more to the point, over the sides). But when I first saw this ad I was also amused at the way an obvious psychopathic homophobe was being portrayed – even more over the top than the runner. I’m not saying that this is a good spot. Shooting Snickers at someone’s ass sort of makes me think of what the product looks like. It doesn’t make me want to eat one.
Without commenting on the burger ad as sexist – you are absolutely correct about the ineffectiveness of the ad. A gag is set up – then it should switch to a full frame of the burger. That’s the gag. Why they split the frame is beyond me. This actually ruins the spot.
I don’t know what to say about the Verizon ad. Complaining about the dogs is silly – and if I hear ‘break through the clutter’ one more time … Marketing execs need to come up with a new dumb phrase that means ‘break through the clutter’ to break through the clutter of using the phrase ‘break through the clutter.’
Do agencies really make videos so they will be rejected by mainstream television? I wonder. They make ads that are specifically for YouTube, knowing full well that they would never pass inspection from mainstream/network television and/or the FCC.
I remember hearing this theory a few years ago with the Dove Pro Age campaign (naked women). But the commercial/campaign was produced to go global – and was aired around the world with huge success. In the U.S. it was rejected. Then Unilever/Ogilvy said to themselves, “Well, why don’t we do an ad about how the ad was rejected in the U.S.?” That was a smart move. It prompted their audience to ferret out the spots on the web – and check out the magazine ads. In other words, they knew they HAD to have television spots to support the campaign - and they figured out a clever way of doing it.
They certainly didn’t shoot the ad just so it would be rejected and ‘go viral.’ The print ads weren’t rejected – running in almost every women’s magazine (and I was surprised to see them in a few culturally conservative magazines). Does this mean Unilever failed in their attempt to be rejected by women’s magazines?
And don’t you think that if the Dove Pro Age spots were not rejected in the U.S. that the campaign would have been even more successful? And seen by more people? I don’t think the controversy was that big a deal to the general public. We talked about it more in our little world of marketing/advertising/PR.
August 11th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Personally I don’t think any of the ads is that great, but can’t see that they’re that offensive either. I wonder, would the ads need to have been pulled if they’d been deployed as online-only campaigns? Is this a case of an online creative approach being used in the ‘wrong’ medium, ie TV?
August 11th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Thanks for the comments.
Chuck, I love the break through the clutter comment and you may well be right, maybe the Steers ad was produced to be aired rather than pulled…but it is so cheesy it makes me wonder.
Duncan, you make a very interesting point. Of course, some companies hold back from posting stuff online because their brand might be placed next to something inappropriate. So if you ad is designed to be offensive online would be the logical place to go.
Nigel
August 12th, 2008 at 10:51 am
I have a problem with the thinking behind the Verizon ad. I understand the intent to showcase the product in an extreme manner, but I believe the execution has the effect of further coarsening the media. I’d readily add to that the T-Mobile ad that has a gorgeous woman cutting down telephone poles with a chainsaw she conveniently has in her car. What are they thinking?
I realize I am whistling into the wind (into a hurricane really), but do we as practitioners have to be supportive of these anti-social acts?
So as to Nigel’s question as to who benefits, I’d say no-one – we all lose just a little bit of human decency.
August 12th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Hi Phil, you mean this ad?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFkSvkw05lM
Doesn’t she know she needs protective gear like safety glasses, gloves and chaps?
Nigel
August 14th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
[...] plenty more. Really want to get offended? Nigel Hollis has documented a series of offensive ads that will probably make you shake your head and ask,"What Were They [...]