There’s no such thing as bad publicity, right? Think again.
Advertising is mass media content intended to persuade audiences to take actions on products, services and ideas. It is powerful to draw in the public’s attention regarding a particular product. Advertising can be deceptive or misleading, though it is deliberate or unintentional. The increasing popularity of controversial advertisement has continued to hit the headlines. There are diverse views about the overflow of controversial commercials all over the world.
Take Hyundai Europe’s recent ad — Pipe Job as an example, this ad has been a matter of controversy in the United Kingdom.
Audience suggested this irritated the thousands of suicide victims and the families they have left behind. After this ad was on public air and has drawn much negatives to Hyundai Europe, the group attributed this to its marketing agency, Innocean Europe. The group claimed that they did not know that the commercial would be released. Hyundai played down the launch of this ad. Yet, they did not ban the spread of the commercial. They indulged the general public to wildly spread the commercial on social media.
Another distinct example of Volkswagen Polo’s unofficial ad in 2006 — Terrorist illustrated people always use controversial advertisements to raise publicity of their products. The ad was blamed for stereotyping “ALL MUSLIMS ARE TERRORISTS”.
Still, this commercial caught public’s attention and raised publicity for Volkswagen’s products. Volkswagen said that they might consider suing the one who created the commercial. However, it ended up with nothing define and Volkswagen allowed internet users to spread the commercial online. Some may ask, what are the motives of doing so? Did Hyundai Europe or Volkswagen Polo not worry that this would devastate their reputations? With no doubt, they both think these controversial advertisements raise publicity for their brands. Publicity is always important to a brand as it represents greater perceived value to the society.
Still, is any publicity good publicity?
There is a saying that “all publicity is good because people talk about you”. This saying is partly correct as it is always successful for a brand, a product or a person to draw the society’s attentions. Therefore for many years, many brands strive to maintain positive images for themselves. In the rapidly changing society, this is not going to be 100% true anymore as for nowadays, ordinary things seem not satisfy people’s needs or shine in people’s eyes. People like something special. The recent P&G London 2012 Olympic Games advertisement, the tagline which appeared at the end of the commercial said “To us, they’re Olympians. But to their moms, they’ll always be kids.” This quote is well-said yet, it is something that everyone knows. There were little people talking about the ad on social media, saying P&G was doing a good job and has produced a touching ad for all British. Needless to say, this commercial put in so much effort and was a great one as the Olympic Games in 2012 was held in London. It also showcased that P&G catered kids all over the world as we can see different Olympians wearing different countries’ sport suits in the ad. For all that, this advertisement did not bring conspicuous achievements for P&G as the overall revenue for P&G did not raise much after this ad was launched. This is because audience may find the commercial too ordinary and therefore audience do not set their hearts on the commercial. On the contrary, controversial advertisements obviously draw more public’s attention as more people talk about them.
Advertising is prevalent nowadays as we all need it to promote, to exemplify the products or the brands. Advertising is supposed to be beneficial not only to the brand, but also the people. The brand can make connections and promises to their consumers through advertisements. However, the commonplace of controversial advertisement changes people’s interpretations to everything. They only think that “all publicity is good because people talk about you”.
This develops a sub-culture that everyone wants to be the highlight in the society. Hence, people are creating things that will trigger controversy in the territory. It seems that people are creating a complete different world from the past, where brand identity is always the first and foremost thing. There is no right or wrong of this emerging sub-culture, but the prevalence of controversial advertisements undoubtedly boosts people’s creativity. People bring in diversity when commenting or creating these advertisements. This paints more colours to the society and it should be the high time for audience to think about how to react with these advertisements, but not to see and blame for the negatives blindly.
