What’s REALLY Going On Here?
February 12th, 2007 by Chief NutA couple of advertising issues in the news:
1) The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has asked that GM pull it’s ad that features an assembly line robot jumping off a bridge.
2) The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) AND the Human Rights Campaign have similarly asked Masterfoods (makers of the Snickers bar) to pull their most recent ad, claiming it is offensive and defamatory to gays and lesbians.
Let me begin by stating that creating an ad campaign that potentially endangers lives, offends the majority of viewers or severely degrades corporate brand value is just plain bad. Consider the recent Cartoon Network “Bomb Scare” ad campaign in Boston … definitely not good for sales.
HOWEVER, when you create a campaign that is edgy, bold and differentiates you from your competitors, you should expect some people to get a little T.O.’d. If that doesn’t happen at all, you probably didn’t take the idea far enough. Water down your ads to the point where nobody even comments, and you also water down your effectiveness.
What really gets my goat is the kinds of reactions the above ads got. Let’s take them one at a time….
1) The GM ad DIDN’T show the robot jumping off a bridge, it showed a robot dreaming about jumping off of a bridge. Minor distinction, for sure, but it’s important. If you’re going to create an ad that portrays a robot with anthropomorphic qualities of fear, depression, loss and sorrow, you might show it having such a terrible dream. This commercial is NOT an endorsement of bridge-jumping … it is simply the portrayal of something totally unexpected …€” a robot thinking like a human. It’s this unexpected idea that makes the ad powerful.
2) Although stereotypes are generally “bad”, they can’t be ignored and they can sometimes be the basis for a wealth of ad ideas. The stereo-type of two manly-men working in a garage, head down in an engine compartment (right or wrong), is something most people ‘get’. The unexpected event is when one guy leans over to eat the candy bar out of the other guy’s mouth (a la The Lady and the Tramp spaghetti scene). YOWZA! If that were to ever actually happen in the real world, what would you expect these two testosterone-laden guys to do?? I’m bettin’ a bit of macho, chest hair pulling is in order! This isn’t defamatory against gays and lesbians any more than the Jack McFarland character’s (Will & Grace) comments about straight guys was defamatory to heterosexuals. Both cases are simply portraying a character doing pretty much what you’d expect them to do.
Lesson to be learned; If you’re in the process of creating brand, don’t let these kinds of events instill ANY kind of fear in your decision-making. BE BOLD! Don’t be afraid to differentiate!
February 12th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Your points on this are well taken BUT consider if you lost your mother, father, son, daughter, wife or husband to suicide via a bridge jumping. Would you feel entertained by such an advertisement? Since 32,000 Americans complete suicide each year and each of these suicides guinely effects a minimum of 6-8 people, that is a huge group of people to offend…not to mention all of the mental health practitioners, physicians and researchers who are working to save lives.
February 15th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
If you haven’t contemplated suicide at least once in your life — even as a creative exercise on a nothing-else-to-do day — you’re living your life in a semi-conscious slumber anyway. Mortality happens. It’s a totally human thing to do to wonder if you could assume a proactive role in that inevitability.
And when a Robot does it, it’s downright fascinating, and helps us all see the situation in a more objective and helpfully-entertaining manner.
People lose loved ones in car crashes too, but they’re not going ot stop running auto ads.
I agree with you, Kevin:
Be BOLD…
…Or perish quietly, someday, without much thought to why you were here in the first place.
-LV
February 16th, 2007 at 12:49 am
Personally, I think that this GM commercial would hit the auto worker hard these days given the fact that the Big 3 are cutting so many jobs. Automation is one way that people are losing their jobs, so to try and generate empathy for a machine that took their job is sort of misplaced. I’m located in the industrial heartland, and with plant closings in the news and people terrified that they will lose their homes - all I see is a large insensitive corporation making light of employee dispair and insecurity, regardless if it is a machine. I think GM’s brand suffers huge with this mis-step. If times were great and employment high and cars selling - we all might share a chuckle. But I believe far too many auto workers will see themselves in this machine’s dream. Bad timing. Bad taste.
The same type of black humour as Chysler’s major layoff news - delivered yesterday on Valentine’s Day. The Big 3 must think themselves pretty funny. They say there is more bad news in 2008 - I’ll bet they choose Christmas morning for that one!
February 16th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Hi Ed,
I grew up in Milford, Michigan, home of the GM proving grounds. My dad was a test driver for many years and retired as one of the top guys on the GM Engineering Staff at the Tech Center in Warren, MI. I’m one of a few in my family who DON’T work in the automotive industry. I truly am a “GM Baby”. As such, I’m pretty sensitive to what’s going on in the Motor City with the Big 3 automakers … and all of their woes.
I couldn’t agree with you MORE about the timing and mis-directed humor!
February 17th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Milford - nice area. I’m over in Windsor. It’s hard to laugh these days with the news coming out. But, I’m very optimistic that the Big 3 will come back again. Although I have a firm belief that their cars are good, it is the lousy service from dealerships that scare a lot of people away. I have some stories.
Ed
February 23rd, 2007 at 8:52 am
[…] My post about GMs assembly line robot was misunderstood by some which led to my clarification that I don’t endorse GM’s decision to create such an ad … but do encourage that type of bold, emotion-based ad development strategy. They just picked the wrong emotion to tap into …€” suicide, dispair, fear.Now consider; […]