What’s going wrong in the world of advertising?
McDonald’s, Dove and Pepsi have all made significant advertising missteps in recent weeks, but what is driving these spectacular fails? In this guest post, Adam Ferrier tries to uncover why brands are out-of-step with consumers.
What is going on in the world of advertising? Within the past month, we’ve seen three spectacular fails, and not from niche brands, or niche projects – but with three of the biggest advertisers in the world, on very big-budget pieces of communications.
Dove ‘Bottle Shapes’, Pepsi ‘Big Protest’, and now McDonald’s ‘My Dead Dad’ have all, according to social media and the mainstream press (they are now partners in crime), spectacularly missed the mark.
Dove ‘Bottle Shapes’, quite literally objectifies women of all shapes and sizes, and uses a tone that mocks years of earnest and considered championing of making all women feel beautiful.
Great piece, thanks Adam.
The Dove ad did not bother me in the slightest.
The other two are clearly NQR.
Totally agree. I think the general punter would see the positive intent, built on years of association as being a champion of that cause, and think it was a cute idea.
To your point about understanding people, sometimes I feel we over-egg how skeptical and critical of marketing the public are.
Maybe it’s because there’s too much input from planners, and all and sundry, so the poor old creatives have to find a million ways to satisfy a fifth valuable proof point or some other nonsense, rather than making a singular powerful piece of communication. Just saying…
I’ve never met a planner who wants ‘more’ proof points. In my experience, they all want clarity, and they all want good creative.
Back to your ivory tower
Or maybe it’s people looking to pass the buck. Oh, hang on…
None of these contain much in the way of proof points, so not sure how you got to that.
These are cases of whole groups of otherwise intelligent and talented people being blind to something fairly obvious from the outside. Planners were clearly a little asleep at the wheel, but so was everyone else – including the creatives, suits and client. We’ve all done it, but if you’ve taken the cash for your expertise, stand up and take it on the chin.
When the emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, no one dares to say that they don’t see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as “unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent”. Finally, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!”
Where have all the children gone?
Wow. The industry would be so great if it were only creatives – who have all the answers and deep consumer insights they need. Better still, get rid of the pesky clients too.
Adam, you’re an intelligent guy, but are you ever going to make advertising rather than merely talk about it?
Hi you can see most of the stuff I’ve made on my linkedIn profile, or on Best Ads (or even on my very ugly website http://www.theconsumerpsychologist.com . cheers
Your website is down..
While smart custodians of great brands are indeed throwing big bucks at getting it unfathomably wrong right now, we mustn’t let courageous CMOs become collateral damage. More thought not less balls, please.
Can you classify Macca’s and Pepsi as ‘great’? They are poison and help humans to develop cancer, heart disease, diabetes, (enter more health disorders here). Perhaps this is the problem?
Nice piece.
However, I think Corporate Cynicism would be a more apt reason then Corporate Blindness; at least in relation to Pepsi.
Brands are knowingly (not blindly) leveraging the reductive fear and loathing of the Trump era in the hope of shifting a few products. Heineken, despite the plaudits, doing the same with their ‘World Apart’ video that I believe is just as cynical as the Pepsi one, just mildly better executed.
Good advertising always tapped into Zeitgeist but requires subtlety and some form of perceived authenticity or authority.
Think the recent labor ad campaign could of been added to the above list.
I’ve been involved in a few campaign disasters, fortunately not as career ending as the three examples.. Usually stems from taking a punt on a creative idea that stands out from the other dross presented so gains a high level of interest and buy in despite the idea taking a significant tangent from the brief.
Internal echo chamber then kicks in during execution, further losing touch on what you originally set out to do and everyone growing in enthusiasm and convinced they are creating an award winning campaign.
The campaign then launches and proceeds to fall off a cliff and then everyone
First of all distances themselves (success has a lot of fathers – failure is an orphan and all that) from the campaign.
Then questions start to be asked – how did this ever get approved/produced?.
Campaign then quietly pulled and then treated the same way as actors and the Scottish play.
Next restructure either the head of sales or marketing leaves ‘to look for new opportunity’.
Yep totally agree – 2 and 3 are mutually complimentary. When you’re up your bum you don’t have time to get out and hang out with real people and experiences, to build real empathy and understanding. Landing simple, authentic and better seems to be a challenging art these days.
This piece seems to make the flawed assumption that the opinion of the traditional media and social media matter.
They don’t.
They aren’t concerned with, nor do they reflect, the efficacy and efficiency of advertising.
Particularly the viewpoints of self-publishers.
Social and digital media channels with low to no threshold for intelligent or informed content are the domain of arrogant, virtue-signalling millennials desperate to look smarter and kinder than their equally obnoxious and ignorant peers.
Any CMO worth their salt frankly doesn’t give a shit what anyone says other than the target audience for their communication. Which very rarely will include readers of this august publication.
Great point.
Yep, the purpose of advertising is to sell stuff. Interestingly all examples are from industries under constant criticism. Junk food and Soft drink are so out of vogue they’re trying anything to connect. And Dove is just obsessed by body image to a point they’ve taken it too far. None of the examples give us a reason to buy the product. The lamb ads at least link the product with a consumption occasion.
Two incredibly insightful points in here –
1) “higher-order / purpose-driven” – This seems to be a wide-reaching affliction for brands. Why can it no longer be enough to create & promote a great product or service (greatness being subjective, of course)
2) “We know that through our social and media channels our own world view is being fed back to us through self-stroking algorithms” – excellent. No wonder we all struggle to understand those in other cultural or socioeconomic groups.
Excellent read
The old adage of ‘advertising is a tax for being unremarkable’ pops up here. None of the products in the examples above were really worthy of shouting about. They were all cost-of-entry commodities that nobody will give a shit about unless you try to add a layer of emotional meaning….it’s kinda why we have a job.
I appreciate brands that shoot for the moon so they end up in the stars, and agree some here overshot and ended up in the sun, but avoiding purposeful comms is not the answer. They just need stronger purposes to link their brand to (outside of Dove, which I actually think was a nice little stunt that most would value).
I am old enough to remember this classic Coke ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-Qiyklq-Q – Was the concept for Pepsi some sort of attempt to capture the same sentiment? If so then they delivered both an epic fail AND it was not even an original idea.
I’m with Paul.
Doing things differently can mean taking risks that sometimes (often) don’t pay off. Sometimes spectacularly. I’d much rather live in a world where advertisers, clients and agencies continue to try new, different and risky avenues than one in which they pre test the living shit out of ideas and take any and all interesting edges away.
and I’m also with Sventana
many SM sites and comments boards are a cess pool of bile and cynicism that influence and represent very little. While of course, every agency and marketer needs to review and understand what their target audience thought of their campaigns, there are far better and more representative ways of doing so than taking online rent a mobs seriously
Clearly what’s happening here is that Chief Executives, and perhaps the Board of Directors have abdicated responsibility for the second largest financial outgoing of their corporations.
Get the focus back on associating advertising with clients’ anticipated 4 year cash flows at net present value, then advertising will earn the essential respect it used to enjoy and certainly deserves.
Cut the bullshit and get back to client cash flows before it is too late. A lesson the incompetents running our newspapers into the ground and destroying our proud history of journalism should have learned long ago!
‘Stepping out into the culture’ is an interesting point.
What might one actually find?
A culture of competitive entitlement, attention-seeking and complaint. The 3 ads in question were poor creative executions but would they have been decreed ‘offensive’ in any other era?
I fear for creativity in this climate.
Agree.
Advertising has been over-reaching since its inception. Lest we forget the health benefits of a pint of Guinness…
Mountain Dew has ridden the peak of at least three significant cultural waves because they needed to flog the terrible product. Good on them.
It is this incessant culture of do holder-preaching powered by social media that has rendered brands and agencies too afraid to stand out.
I admire their bravery despite the delivery.
I think what’s interesting, particularly in the Pepsi case – is that a competitor HAS managed to find a powerful space where they make statements in an authentic and reasonable way. (I.e.: Coke India/Pakistan video links)
Perhaps Pepsi was led by a desire to keep up.
I don’t believe it’s wrong for brands to want to play in a bigger space, after all, society needs progression from all sides. The problem is, as alluded to here, that they do so without understanding of the world, the audience, or where their brand actually fits. Just paying a celebrity and making a statement isn’t enough, the brand has to back it up.
Imagine you had a friend who every time you asked them, “What do you think about this…” they replied with, “I don’t know, what’s your opinion because that’s mine too” You would grow tired of them very quickly. All these ads are examples of Brands doing and saying what their research tells them. [Badly] Pepsi wants to be down with the kids. Dove wants to appeal to women with body images issues. McDonalds wants look attractive to a new generation in the same way it was to their parents. These brands have no opinions of their own, no Authentic purpose and that’s the problem. They stand for nothing beyond profit and will tell you anything you want to hear. Brands that have their own Authentic personality and voice and stand for more than just making a profit are what we are drawn too and not these.
100% agree.
Yep – Just like a used car salesman
This brand description perfectly describes so many Australian marketing departments. Insight has been replaced by consumer focus groups. In turn the weak agencies make what they are told to make rather than anything with real strategic insight, execution then comes down to what feels like an ad rather than what stands out from other ads. It’s a poor situation caused by lack of marketing insight at the C suite level. Too many out of touch folk hiring cheap marketers with next to no real success under their belts.
Nice article. My build: for every fail that gets huge attention like these ones have, there are probably 100 ads that fail because they are too bland and don’t move the needle at all.
Bland ads work fine. Most ads are bland and don’t stand out. Still work though. Check out Low involvement processing. Some research suggests they even work better when we don’t really notice them.
Ha! That’s great. I’ve not come across “Low involvement processing” If ever I get a client say an ad idea is boring I say it’s deliberate….
… meanwhile Colenso BBDO has just produced a corker of a campaign for dog rescue.
http://replacethem.co.nz/#/
What does the petfood category have that gives them special dispensation to connect with ‘higher-order, purpose-driven spaces’?
Nothing, except the quality and appropriateness of the marketing solution.
Some bad decisions were made, and if not repeated over and over again these mistakes will have a negligible effect – if any – on sales. The sky is not falling down, and these ads are not the most egregious examples of ‘what is wrong in the world of advertising’.
The knotting of knickers is strong in this one.
Your comments are spot on. The answer is so convuluted that as Mary Poppins said… Let’s start at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start. Sigh!! It’s all about who’s leading the charge.
An interesting and insightful read for sure. I’d be interested to know if sales of Pepsi, Macca’s or Dove have been effected by any fallout associated with these campaigns or are people in the UK (for example) just thinking to themselves – “Who the f*%k eats a fillet o’fish?… could go for a Big Mac and a sixer of nuggets right now though”
May a case of everyone involved being on ‘the road to Abilene’?
When I was little, TV and movies were tame, so ads were left to periodically caused a stir. Maybe todays adventures of Netflix, and pokier content all around means ads and ‘bread & butter media’ swapped places some time ago – and maybe in our echo chamber (yup, I’ve fucked up sometimes too) are whistfully struggling to wind back the clock. Hopefully not impossible, just harder.
If you want to advertise on higher order needs you need to have a product or a history that aligns with your message. The public aren’t so dumb that they won’t recognise a cynical attempt to cash in on a hollow sentiment.
Woollies and Coles used to be all product and price with weekly specials but it’s now farmers in paddocks, Curtis Stone having dinner with someone and Jamie Oliver giving kids apples. Perhaps we as a society are moving to higher ground on the whole but I accept sometimes it does seem the higher-pourpose angle from brands is getting a thorough caining right now. Whatever the case, isn’t it a nice break from Bunnings, Harvey Norman and local car dealers shouting out the TV speakers at you?!! ☺
In my experience, understanding the category is the missing link. Your examples have bonkers reference to what drives behavior in their respective category. Cultural understanding is fuel (for insight, story and distribution), but not a brief in its own right.
Just a thought. Keep it up, Adam!
The trouble is rooted in the fact that advertising is an unethical and rapacious business. The public is starting to become aware of just how insidious it is and is turning off. Like that Xmas ad from Britain which the mainstream media didn’t notice was a horribly exploitative look at World War One and Xmas, it is not surprising that they’d try to manipulate feelings using an orphan.
The industry is dying at least in It’s present form. Good riddance.
It’s funny really, because the majority of the most truly ethical people are know are all in adland.
The Sainbury’s ad in question caused a lot of stir, perhaps rightly, but you have to remember it was made in partnership with the British Royal Legion. It wasn’t just shoved out with little consideration of it’s wider context.
The question I have is, if advertising in its current form dies – what will you replace it with? In my experience advertising is like a bastion of ethics compared to media.
Advertising is the cornerstone of capitalism is the cornerstone of democracy. Vibrant advertising is often found in vibrant democracies.
Have a look at the advertising in cultures with suppressive governments.
Maximising profit is the cornerstone of capitalism, and voting rights for all is the cornerstone of democracy.
Brilliant. This comment should be printed and posted in every meeting room in every agency.
Advertising in cultures with suppressive governments is always flawless, and always works.
Because The Great And Fearless Ruler said so, that’s why.
(Is this being monitored? I bet this is being monitored.)
Capitalism is the cornerstone of democracy. Wow.
I think the article hits two very ingredients in a bad ad:
1. Hierarchy
As always when you see these adds that produce a bad gut reaction you ask question “How can anyone who saw this think it was a good idea?” The answer is of course that plenty of people realised just how awful it was and didn’t say anything. Because they don’t want to make a career limiting move. Because its hard to tell a senior colleague that they are embarrassing themselves. Because hierarchy. Which is a problem in multiple industries, but is especially problematic in advertising – just listen to how the staff talk about themselves.
2. No business in this space.
Yep. Clear as clear can be. What has Pepsi got to do with world peace? Its like they thought they could do uniting colours of Benetton 80’s style and just…get away with it because. Sometimes, brands have to realise the reality/image gap is just a bridge too far. You can stretch your “good characteristics” a little bit…not that much. Want your brand to be associated with world peace? A couple of decades of contributing meaningfully/hiring someone with credibility in this area (not a click bait star) as the celebrity head might do and you might get away with it.
You’re on to something with your first point. A lot of these big packaged goods companies do that weird “most junior person first” feedback system. So they’re terrified of saying what they really think lest it disagree with the most senior person in the room who gives their feedback last. I’ve sat in these meetings and wondered at how bonkers it all is and how it is designed to promote groupthink and perpetuate out of touch perspectives.
At least the Pepsi ad reminded me to revisit this (almost 20yo) cracking tune and clip from the Chemical Brothers. Reckon the creatives had seen it? I know which execution I prefer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQX6rHuxCeA
Pepsi, Dove and McDonalds are basic commodities which have no particular USP.
Most products do not have any particularly unique feature. People buy them because they associate the product with a social group they identify with.
The Pepsi campaigns are based on a competition with Coke, they are the edgier, more underdog brand, the Sega to the Nintendo. The recent campaign follows the same trend since the “Choice of a New Generation” campaign from the 1980s and the gorilla in a convertible advertisements. The difference between it and the 1960s “Share The World” campaign for Coke is that that was an inclusive social group whereas the Pepsi campaign was supposed to be counter-cultural.
Many years ago the MD of an agency got all the suits together and posed two questions:
1. What is a good advertisement?
Answer : One the client likes.
2. How do you get concepts approved?
Answer : Always present three ideas. Ask the client which one they like and then say ” Good choice, that would have been mine too”
Later, when the advertisement doesn’t work remind the client that they chose it.
That was about 35 years ago, and not much has changed.
And that’s what wrong with advertising.
Indeed.
Great article Adam. There is an answer. Its called consumer research. Not “which ad do you like?” as we all know how ad agencies hate that type of “research”. I mean getting a better understanding of what people actually think/feel. This kind of information should, in theory, give us the ability to understand if a creative direction is right or wrong. The issue is listening to people (plus asking the right questions) is sometimes challenging for all the reasons Adam points out as the problems. So around we go.
Great piece. Spot on. I think there’s also an element of ‘we have to top our last idea’ that can lead to the idea preceding the insight. It’s especially obvious in the Dove campaign.