Effectiveness of “Censored by Facebook” in your ad
Facebook admitted that they made a mistake after they banned an ad featuring French artist Eugene Delacroix’s masterpiece, “Liberty Leading the People,” because it depicts a bare-breasted woman. Delacroix’s subject who has a French flag in the painting is not just any woman — she’s Marianne, a national symbol of the French Republic. However, Facebook said no. This painting was featured in an online ad for a play showing in Paris when it was blocked on Facebook this week, the play’s director, Jocelyn Fiorina, said.
In order to follow with Facebook’s rules, Fiorina reposted the same painting with a banner saying “Censored by Facebook” covering the nudity. After that, Facebook had a change of heart and apologized to Fiorina for this error. Therefore, Fiorina posted the original ad again.
One of the article about this incident is here: Facebook ‘sorry’ for censoring nude breasts from iconic French liberty goddess painting
All in all, this incident is stupid. This incident happened because the company’s internal control was not working well.
However, thinking about this ad’s success or failure wearing a marketing hat, I think Fiorina is successful. First of all, he changed the ad with the banner immediately. He was smart. When you looked at 19th-century famous painting on Facebook, you might not pay attention to the painting because you have seen the painting many times. However, the masterpiece painting with Facebook blue colored banner saying “Censored by Facebook” caught your eyes because it’s irregular. The ad with the banner would have caught people’s eyes compared to the original version. Also, many articles and blogs published because of Facebook’s censoring. If he measures this ad’s result, he will know this ad is effective.
Fiorina made a lucky guess, so this incident is difficult to mimic. On the other hand, if you face this kind of situation, please don’t give up. And then, you can do something unique under the circumstance. If Fiorina just gave up his ad, he wouldn’t have gathered the general public’s eyeball to his project. Tough times bring opportunity.
