You’ve probably all seen the furore about Hyundai’s recent more-than-inappropriate ad.
Disgusting, shocking, unbelievable and utterly stupid.
Now that I’ve got that out of my system, let’s not talk about the ad as such, but about accountability and specifically who’s at fault when a campaign is either offensive, ill-conceived, badly run or simply a disaster?
In Hyundai’s case, should Hyundai themselves or their agency Innocean take the blame? The ad obviously cost a fair bit – it was beautifully shot, and many people must have been involved along the way. Surely somebody thought ‘… erm, this might upset a few folks’?
It reminds me of another incident in 2010 that saw Lean Mean Fighting Machine fired by Dr Pepper/Coca-Cola for running a Facebook campaign that ended with a pornographic status update on a 14 year old girl’s Facebook page. The decision to fire the agency perhaps seemed right at the time, but Dr Pepper obviously knew what the campaign was about. Did they sign off the content, were they aware of the risks?
And just last night, it was announced that Coke’s nemesis Pepsico have also burped up a clanger with an online ad for Mountain Dew that has been hailed by one blogger as ‘arguably the most racist commercial in history’. The commercial features a beaten white woman at a police line-up of black men and a goat – enough said. The ad has been quite rightly pulled but again, who’s at fault here – the creator or the brand? The creator was no doubt commissioned to come up with something different and the ad surely didn’t go straight from his drawing board to the web without so much as a look-see from the client.
Innovative marketing and advertising should challenge the norm and the best creative work often lives on the edge, but these are prime example of checks and balances not working, or even being in place at all. The increasing issue for such failures in compliance is that outrage can spread at the click of a mouse meaning perhaps those working in marcoms need to think more carefully about the ramifications of their work.
Will that mean the death of the truly creative ad if the Don Drapers of this world have to play it safe?
Answers on a postcard please, just in case they’re offensive.
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