Bic, IHOP, and the disturbing trend of careless sexism on social media
Because this blog entry is about social media “brand fails,” I have been pondering about the power of social media to both make and break a company, brand, campaign, person, or group. One of the features of social media that makes it so incredibly powerful for marketing, also makes it incredibly dangerous: the ability for a message to gain traction and reach millions of people within a very short time. This is simply the nature of social media and any company dealing with any social platform must face this reality and construct their campaigns accordingly.
Now, of course, companies cannot always predict why and when something will go viral or when a message could be taken out of context or misinterpreted. Some “brand fails” may truly result from very bad luck and unfortunate timing. Others, however, certainly seem preventable if the mangers involved had only spent bit more time understanding the various audiences and larger environment in which their message was being received.
The first social media “brand fail” I would like to share is one from Bic out of South Africa, one that, likely because of the geography, I (fortunately) had not heard about until I did a bit of Googling about “social media brand fails.” In an apparent effort to celebrate National Women’s Day, Bic released the following ad:
Now, I think almost anyone reading this will immediately see what went wrong. Bic was apparently attempting to celebrate women and their ability to “put on multiple hats,” to perhaps succeed as businesswomen, while embracing their femininity. However, the message that most women read from this is that you have to “think like a man” in order to be a successful boss. To me, the message seems so incredibly dated, it almost makes me sick. Clearly this is not a message perceived by most women to be celebrating the shattering of the glass ceiling, but rather, reinforcing its continued existence.
It is pretty hard to understand how anyone in their right mind, let alone someone responsible for a large company’s social media marketing, could read this ad and not realize it would rub a lot of people the wrong way. However, let’s give Bic the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume they really thought they were celebrating women’s many successes. Even if that were true, Bic’s response after facing significant backlash made matters even worse, further reinforcing the idea that the company was clueless about its audience. The company claimed that “the quote was lifted from a businesswoman blog,” implying that that must mean it was appealing to women[2].
By not taking ownership for this mistake, Bic made the situation even worse. The company was basically telling its customers that Bic did little research to understand them or the context in which they operate.
And what makes matters even worse (yes…it does get worse!), is that although Bic promised something like this would never happen again, this is actually not the first time that Bic has come out with a campaign that has been offensive to women. In 2012, the company released a pen that was “just for her,” which received loads of angry, sarcastic, annoyed reviews on Amazon[3]. The idea that there is such thing as a womanly pen not only offended a lot of people, it also just sounds ludicrous. Thus, I can say that without a doubt, that Bic could (and should) have easily prevented that second brand fail after seeing the reaction to the “for her” pen on Amazon.
What I have realized in exploring this Bic example, as well as other social media brand fails, is that there seems to be a disturbing trend of companies publishing insensitive social media content that comes off as misogynistic and offensive to women. Another example, albeit not as blatantly ridiculous as the Bic fail, is IHOP’s recent Twitter post attempting to make a joke about flat-chested women, using a stack of pancakes:
In IHOP’s defense, I don’t personally find this anywhere near as offensive as Bic’s snafus. I think that most consumers largely see this for what it is — a silly joke that is not meant to offend anyone. However, why would IHOP risk posting something like this, just to sound cool and edgy? IHOP should have considered the fact that at least some women would see this post and find it upsetting. And indeed, shortly after this was posted, a frenzy of backlash ensued.
While I’m not a frequent customer of IHOP, I’m pretty sure most people see the company as a family brand. Therefore, tweeting something insensitive and a bit crude doesn’t seem to fit in well with the brand personality. IHOP does not need to be edgy! This is a pancake house where parents take their kids on the weekends. While I don’t necessarily accuse IHOP of being sexist, I do accuse them of being careless. They published this ad without thoughtfully considering both their own brand persona, as well as their target audience. This is absolutely another brand fail that could have easily been prevented.
Unfortunately, if I wanted to continue on this theme of social media ads that have been offensive to women, I could come up with many other recent examples. And the thing is, I’m guessing that 90% of people involved in these campaigns are not actually intending to be sexist; they do not mean to offend. If only these companies had done something exceedingly simple, consider their desired image and their target audience before posting, they could have avoided some massive headaches!
[1] http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/bic-apologizes-womens-day-ad-mostly-just-made-women-furious-166358)
[2] https://www.clickz.com/2015/12/17/the-10-cringe-worthiest-social-media-fails-of-2015)
[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/bic-pen-for-her-amazon-reviews_n_1842991.html.
[4] http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/ihop-tries-make-joke-about-womens-breasts-fails-miserably-167659
