Tatiana Sweet
For several days now, passions have been boiling in Runet around the Reebok advertising campaign #nivkakieramki. The pendulum of scandal is swinging, revealing new details. The specialist who approved the scandalous slogans was fired. Now he tells reporters about the ossified society and is looking for a new job.
Meanwhile, Reebok commented on the situation at the official level. Brand spokesman Daniel Sarro said that the scandalous posters were not agreed with the management and do not reflect the views and opinions of the company.
The very phrase "Sit on ..." has become a meme and is circulating on the Internet.
The compilation was created solely for your entertainment. We do not promote anything, we do not humiliate anyone and we are not looking for hidden meanings in these collections.
Unhate (Benetton, 2011)
The Italian clothing brand is known for thoughtful, bright and edgy social media posters. But the campaign "Unhate" ("No to violence") surprised even fans of the brand, accustomed to provocations. Posters of political and religious leaders "merged lips in kisses." And it would be nice if marketers used real photos from the chronicles! No, it's him - Photoshop Almighty =)
The heroes of the photo were in an awkward position. If conditional Paris Hilton can get into a legal showdown because of an insult to honor and dignity, then political leaders are clearly not up to it. Therefore, the White House limited itself to a veiled disapproval of the campaign. "Our policy discourages the use of the president's name and likeness for promotional purposes", - said White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz. Explicit disapproval was expressed only by the representative of the Vatican, declaring an insult to the feelings of believers. Benetton decided not to tease the geese and quickly removed the kiss photo of Pope Benedict XVI and the Egyptian imam from the campaign. However, it has already managed to scatter on the Internet and create a resonance.
"Ice Cream is our religion" (Antonio Federici, 2010)
The idea of the advertising campaign is simple - ice cream is so tempting that it is impossible to resist it. But for its implementation, marketers British brand Antonio Federici obviously chose the wrong topic. The authorities of London have banned the placement of posters with a pregnant nun and priests ambiguously looking at each other on the streets of the city on the eve of the visit of the Pope. The hype did not work, although advertising nevertheless appeared in separate magazines.
"Commit to something" (Equinox, 2016)
The ad campaign of the fitness club chain Equinox with the slogan "Dedicate yourself" is just a storehouse for fans of scandals. Here and public breastfeeding, and "strong / independent with 40 cats", and a man-narcissist, and a village boy covered with bees. Judging by the negativity in social networks, the campaign hit hard on someone's complexes.
"I flash in #mycalvins" (Calvin Klein, 2016)
This is the first underwear ad ever to be accused of promoting sexual harassment. After a photo of young actress Clara Christine from a piquant angle appeared on the official Calvin Klein account, activists launched a whole campaign against the #mycalvins series. In their opinion, such photos encourage an unhealthy tendency to photograph women under a skirt or shorts. Later in the UK they even tried to introduce a law providing for imprisonment for such pictures.
The brand did not follow the lead of the dissatisfied and did not delete the photo. The heroine of the scandalous picture said that people are simply clamped in relation to their bodies. True, for her most scandalous photo shoot was the peak of her career. After the scandal, global brands did not offer her cooperation, and the career of the actress has not yet worked out.
"Behind Closed Doors" (Eckhaus Latta, 2017)
At the sight of the new advertising campaign, many thought that the official website of the clothing brand Eckhaus Latta had been hacked and turned into a strawberry archive. Because the photo series “Behind closed doors”, dedicated to the new collection, was not just frank, it balanced on the verge of erotica and frank porn. The creatives covered the naked intimate places of the models with pixels, but this did not make the photos more modest. Some of the posters show models of the same sex, and it was these pictures that caused the most dissatisfaction.
Sometimes an ad ban works even more to promote a brand than the campaign itself. Yesterday, the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned Miu Miu's photo ads, calling them "irresponsible." Photos with 14-year-old actress Hailee Steinfeld did not like the representatives of the ASA because the girl is depicted in a dangerous situation: with a sad face, almost crying, she is sitting on rusty railroad tracks. We bring to your attention ten advertising shots that outraged the public, but due to scandals, they were able to promote the advertised brand, perhaps even more than it was originally intended.
(Total 10 photos)
source: slon.ru
1. The Pope kisses the imam. The latest scandalous shot of the clothing brand Benetton. Customer - Benetton Group.
2. A photo of 17-year-old actress Dakota Fanning seemed indecent to the public. Customer: Marc Jacobs.
3. 14-year-old actress Hailee Steinfeld waiting for the train. The customer is the youth brand Miu Miu from Prada.
5. Parents were concerned that this Last Exorcism movie poster, featuring a girl who may have been abused, was posted on buses, in movie theaters and free magazines about.
6. Friday dream of the average office worker. An advertisement for a British hotel chain. The client is Virgin Holidays.
8. The Sydney Summer Olympics were held in 2000. On this occasion, the Benetton Group came up with their own original logo.
9. The advertisers just wanted to play on words by calling the ad Killer Heels. And they were accused by the public of promoting violence and sexism. Nevertheless, the picture was published in almost all the leading publications in the UK and sold several billion copies. The customer is NMA.
10. A photo depicting a cemetery of soldiers who died during the First World War reminds us that we are all equal. The ad was released in 1991 during the Gulf War.
He shares his thoughts on a given topic, a member of the Marketing Guild, managing partner of the Foresight 24 consulting company, an expert on market trends and consumer behavior.
We can say that brands (especially top ones) are becoming more and more socially active. The fashion world is the first to respond to these changes. In 2016, during the show of the fashion house Christian Dior in Paris, its creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri brought models to the catwalk wearing T-shirts with the slogan "We should all be feminists" ("We should all be feminists"). From that moment on, the fashion for socially challenging slogans began to spread around the world, drawing attention to politics and elections, problems with migrants, gender inequality and sexual violence, the economic crisis, racial discrimination, discrimination against sexual minorities, etc.
Was it a mistake, as the company claims? Maybe. But this particular position was highlighted too clearly with the help of a black child model against the background of other fair-skinned children. For H&M, which is in an unstable situation, the racist scandal could be the beginning of a serious crisis. However, it is unlikely that the company with the help of just one sweatshirt in the online store was trying to attract attention and restore its performance.
Maria Wasserman, media director of the Conscience project gives its recommendations on the tactics of behavior that should be followed in the event of a deliberate or unplanned scandalous action that caused a wide resonance, and caused a “wave of opinion” regarding the brand.
#1 Sequence: if you deliberately provoked a scandal, you should not “change shoes” halfway through and start pretending that “oh, it’s not us.” Respect those who have a core. Like, for example, Aviasales. There is nothing worse than a "floating" position - you run the risk of losing even that, albeit not numerous, but an audience of ardent "lawyers" and defenders.
#3 Matching the scandal to the “opportunity” of your target audience. Not everything that is possible in communication with B2C is suitable, for example, for B2B. Not everything that will delight young people (such as Burger King stock) is suitable for a business that has customers over 40 years old. The last scandal with Miroslava Duma - if she did business only in Russia, most likely there would be no scandal. But she is focused on overseas markets, she has a huge number of subscribers from other countries - and there racism is extremely hot topic. Here is the tweet of FC Spartak about the “chocolate” - Russian fans did not see any problematic background in it at all, but Western media, sensitive to racial issues, staged real ritual dances.
Advertising campaigns are the engine of the fashion business. Fashion brands spend millions every year promoting their new products and collections, and the success of a brand often depends on the success of an advertising campaign. Chief designers and leaders of leading fashion houses know that the price of a mistake is their career. They also learned well the rule that scandals and provocations only fuel interest in the product, which is why it is in the fashion business that you can often find examples of immoral and shocking advertising campaigns.
Sex, drugs, rock-n-roll and more - fashion brand ads touch on taboo topics such as racism, incitement to religious and political controversy, humiliation of women, and much more. website presents an overview of the most scandalous advertising campaigns in the fashion industry.
Calvin Klein Jeans, 1980
Harmless and innocent by modern standards advertising Calvin Klein Jeans caused a real scandal just over thirty years ago and thus entered the history of the fashion business forever. Legendary Photographer Richard Avedon captured a 15 year old Brooke Shields, who a few months earlier became the youngest model on the cover vogue, in blue jeans and a one-button shirt. In the advertising posters, Brooke playfully throws his leg and looks languidly into the camera, while in the video he whistles a simple melody and says the famous slogan that caused increased interest in the campaign: “You wanna know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing" ("Do you want to know what's between me and my jeans? Nothing"). The public saw sexual overtones in this phrase, and at the same time accused the designer of promoting child pornography. As a result, production of the model of jeans that Brooke shows in advertising was suspended until 1998.
Over the next three decades Calvin Klein more than once shocked the world with its controversial and defiant advertising shots, but it was the 1980 campaign that became truly iconic and brought fame to all its heroes.
Yves Saint Laurent, 2000
One of the most scandalous advertising campaigns in the history of the fashion industry is the fragrance promotional campaign. Opium from Yves Saint Laurent. In photographs taken Stephen Meisel, 23 year old model Sophie Dahl appeared completely naked. With her head thrown back, she lies on the dark sheets, covering one breast with her hand. Within three weeks of posting the image, the British Advertising Commission received 948 complaints demanding a ban on the dissemination of outrageous, degrading images of women. In addition, according to the British, advertising could provoke a wave of rapes. And Dahl's pale complexion led some particularly ardent morality activists to think that the protagonist of the advertisement might already be dead. Advertising posters disappeared from the streets of the cities of the United Kingdom, but remained on the pages of glossy magazines.
This scandal did not stop the campaign Yves Saint Laurent Opium received several prestigious awards and made the brand one of the most talked about in 2000, which, in fact, was achieved Tom Ford, appointed to the position of creative director of the brand a year earlier.
Emanuel Ungaro, 2002
Two years after the controversial ad Yves Saint Laurent french house Emanuel Ungaro decided to repeat the success "Opium" and shot in an advertisement for his next collection a model taking a very unambiguous pose - sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall, the girl threw one hand behind her head and held the other between her legs. Even at the stage of advertising approval, all glossy magazines refused to publish pictures on their pages. The only publication that printed the scandalous photo was the American vogue. Perhaps this is one of the few examples when brand representatives themselves tried to stir up a scandal and draw as much attention as possible to the fact that their creative idea remained misunderstood.
Gucci, 2003
Another company that decided in practice to make sure that Sex sells was right was Gucci. In 2003, the eminent brand, led by Tom Ford, who had already demonstrated his love for candid photo shoots, showed the world a picture taken Mario Testino. The face, or rather, the body of the advertising campaign was the model Carmen Kass. In the picture, the girl was standing near the wall, lowering her underwear and demonstrating an intimate haircut in the form of a brand logo. Gucci. A young man is kneeling in front of her. Despite the explicit sexual connotation, the public reacted to the advertisement quite calmly - the British Advertising Commission received only 16 complaints demanding that the publication of the pictures be banned. However, representatives of the brand said that they intended to demonstrate a harmless play on words that would refer to the sexual image of the brand. And the experts quickly agreed with this, emphasizing that the photo appeared on the pages of magazines intended for an “adult fashionable modern and advanced audience” who would not be offended by such an image.
Sisley, 2007
Italian stamp Sisley she was never shy about flirting with dangerous topics in her advertising campaigns, and Terry Richardson was not averse to both taking the next picture on the verge of a foul and appearing in some of these pictures himself. However, in 2007 the company paid the price for its scandalous image. A promotional photo of the new collection appeared on the Internet, which caused a huge resonance. Two not-so-fresh-looking models sniffed through the white straws of the straps of the dress Sisley. This whole scene appearance girls, as well as a credit card in white powder, which also appeared in the frame, clearly suggested cocaine use. In 2007, two years after the scandal with Kate Moss, this topic was no longer very relevant, but still aroused interest. The reaction to the publication of the picture followed immediately: a lot of outraged reviews flooded the Internet. Some time later, representatives Sisley issued a statement that they have nothing to do with these pictures, the photo is a falsification and violates the rights of the company. The inauthenticity of the advertisement was also indicated by a mistake made in the slogan accompanying the image. The authors of the picture, intentionally or accidentally, made a typo in the word Fashion. It is still not entirely clear whether Sisley were victims of their own image or the picture was published specifically to attract additional attention to the brand.
Tom Ford, 2007
Having demonstrated his commitment to scandalous photo shoots while still working in Yves Saint Laurent and Gucci, in advertising own brand Tom Ford went much further, completely forgetting about morality and ethics. In 2007 the brand Tom Ford introduced the first men's fragrance. The original photo shoot with Ford in the title role seemed boring and insipid to the designer, so he decided to reshoot it and invited another famous provocateur to take the role of the photographer - Terry Richardson. As a result, Tom published promotional shots that were later dubbed glamor porn. The photo shows the naked body of a model heavily oiled, holding a bottle of perfume on her chest and between her thighs. Tom Ford for men. The shocking advertisement did not go beyond the online space, however, even without that, it managed to be well remembered by the public. Continuing the theme in the same year, Tom presented an advertisement for his sunglasses collection: a model with glasses Tom Ford with brightly painted lips, holds a male middle finger in his mouth, the owner of which does not appear in the frame.
Diesel, 2010
One of the most successful and popular advertising campaigns of recent years, which received huge quantities awards from the professional community, was the 2010 Be stupid campaign of the Italian brand Diesel, within which a series of posters was published urging to forget about prudence and not be afraid to look strange.
The ironic photos with catchy slogans instantly gained popularity and at the same time caused the disapproval of the advertising oversight commission as overly sexual, violating the rules of decency and encouraging antisocial behavior. As a result, the commission managed to ban the publication of only two posters: on one of them, the girl lifts her T-shirt and shows her bare breasts in front of the surveillance camera, and on the other, the half-naked heroine of the picture photographs herself in close proximity to the lion. The rest of the prints adorned the streets of the largest cities in the world for a long time.
The slogans accompanying creative photos read “The smart ones have brains, the stupid ones have courage”, “The smart one listens to the voice of reason, the stupid one listens to the voice of the heart”, “Smart people see what is. Stupid people see what could be”, “Smart people have plans, stupid people have stories”, “Stupid people try and fail. Mostly wrong”, “If we didn’t have stupid thoughts, we wouldn’t have any interesting thoughts”, “Smart people say no, stupid people say yes”, “Smart people had one brilliant idea, and it turned out to be stupid”, “Stupid may fail. The smart ones don't even try" and others. The fans of the brand liked the idea so much that photos imitating advertising posters instantly began to appear on the Internet. Diesel.
Simultaneously with the launch of the promo campaign on its official website Diesel announced a competition for the most stupid act - brand fans had to send videos of their follies, the brightest of which were subsequently included in the video clip Diesel Stupid Music Video.
Donna Karan, 2011
In 2011 Donna Karan decided to draw public attention to the problems of Haiti - the republic was just beginning to recover from the 2010 earthquake and was in dire need of financial assistance. The designer chose the city of Jacmel in the southern part of the country as the filming location, and the main character was a Brazilian Adriana Lima. It would seem that the pictures turned out to be quite trivial and familiar to fashion industry, but the reviews of the ad surprised everyone: Donna was accused of racism. The fact is that in the same frame with Adriana in a stylish jumpsuit from the collection Donna Karan two black Haitian teenagers showed up. It was this fact that was regarded as a humiliation of the dignity of local residents. According to critics, the use of images of Haitians as "props and background" demonstrates an unacceptable imperialist attitude towards the country. In addition, the experts were confused by the contrast between the luxurious image of Lima and the poverty and poverty of the young people who accompanied her in this photo.
United Colors of Benetton, 2011
famous advertising campaigns United Colors of Benetton tend not to sell branded goods (often it is not in the photo at all), but to draw attention to social problems. They raise issues of sexual and racial discrimination, touch upon such dangerous and unusual topics for the world of commercial advertising as AIDS, war, politics and religion. And, of course, bold and uncompromising shots, most of which were filmed Oliviero Toscani have often found themselves at the center of controversy.
The main idea that Benetton strives to convey in its campaigns - this is universal equality regardless of race, gender, social or religious affiliation. The apotheosis of this thought was a 1991 advertising poster with a French military cemetery, where soldiers who died during the First World War are buried. The picture, published in the midst of the military conflict in the Persian Gulf, caused a huge resonance in society. No less attention was drawn to the photo of a man dying of AIDS David Kirby and the grief-stricken family of the patient - in 1998 it was still not customary to talk about this disease in public. The publication of this non-staged documentary photograph provoked accusations of cynicism and cruelty against United Colors of Benetton. And in 2000, the company published a catalog with photographs and stories of 26 American prison inmates sentenced to death in the electric chair. In the lens of Toscani, the criminals acquired positive traits and aroused public sympathy, which, of course, outraged the families of the victims of their crimes.
last loud scandal in history United Colors of Benetton was the 2011 Unhate campaign - billboards around the world featured photomontage images of leaders of world powers kissing on the lips: the President of the United States Barack Obama and Chinese leader Hu Jintao, ex-President of France Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, heads of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu.
However, the greatest anger fell on the poster of Pope Benedict XVI and the Egyptian imam Mohammed Ahmed el Taib. The reaction of the Vatican was unquestioning - images should be banned. Chapter Benetton issued a statement that the pictures only call for tolerance, but nevertheless agreed to remove the scandalous frame from print, while apologizing for insulting the feelings of believers.
The main difficulty for marketers in working with scandalous advertising is to work out correctly almost on the verge of a foul, without causing the loss of a significant proportion of consumers (client base) and without falling under the ban. It is not difficult to draw attention to a company or products with the help of scandalous advertising, it is important not to go beyond the permissible limits, as a result of which there may be a massive loss of customers, partners' refusal to work with the company and termination of contracts by brand representatives. The H&M brand faced such a situation at the beginning of 2018.
The development of scandalous advertising is appropriate when the company has interesting idea in response to events taking place in the outside world, when she wants to draw attention to a problem or universal values, or to “play” with target audience in the expectation that the latter will support the communication message contained in the advertisement.
For several decades now famous brands resort to scandals in an attempt to attract attention. This tool is most often used:
- brands in the clothing, cosmetics and accessories market (Benetton, Tom Ford, Yves Saint Laurent, Levi's, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, etc.);
- automotive brands (Mercedes, Ford, Toyota, Opel, etc.);
- public organizations and the state - social advertising (for example, the anti-tobacco campaign of the BDDP & FILS agency, advertising against talking on the phone while driving and domestic violence, etc.).
In Russia, scandalous advertising is often found in small businesses (in local markets), however, despite the viral effect, such projects, as a rule, made “on the knee”, are rather provocative or outrageous. For example, signs of shops and cafes with "interesting" names, shocking outdoor advertising. Yevgeny Chichvarkin and his Euroset can be called a kind of founder of scandalous advertising in Russia.
Ads for fast food chains are predominantly provocative and challenge competitors in a decades-long struggle between these giants. Similar advertising wars are constantly waged between Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola, as well as automakers.
An example of the use of a provocative approach is the advertising of the steakhouse Torro Grill, which positions itself as "the first steakhouse available."
To promote food products, scandalous advertising is less typical than non-food markets, however, here, too, manufacturers have been making non-standard moves lately.
Thus, one of the first scandalous advertisements in the market of meat products was the outdoor advertisement of the Malakhov meat processing plant (Fig. 6), which was banned in 2009 by the government of St. Petersburg due to inconsistency with paragraph 6 of Article 5 federal law"About advertising" (use of obscene and offensive images).
Due to the lack of numerous successful (and not so) Russian and foreign cases, manufacturers are looking for their own ways of working with consumers with the help of scandalous and provocative advertising. One of the unfortunate examples that play on sexual overtones and gender differences, actively used in the scandalous advertising of fashion brands.
In 2018, an advertisement for the Dymov company appeared on the market, placed in in social networks in the wake of the scandal surrounding the H&M brand, in whose online store a sweatshirt with the inscription "The coolest monkey in the jungle" was found, shown by a black boy, the only one among the other fair-skinned child models. Whether this was a planned action or a marketing mistake is unknown. However, this greatly affected financial indicators and the stability of the company, which is already going through hard times.
On the VKontakte network, the post received only 83 likes, two reposts and 15 comments with more than 17,000 views and 4234 subscribers (data as of March 11, 2018). We can say that the manufacturer made an attempt to play on an event relevant to society, however, given that the topic of racism in Russia is practically not painful, he did not receive a big response. Subscribers reacted poorly to the posts, the number of views is less than that of the traditional posts of the Dymov company, which, by the way, works quite effectively in social networks ().
Attempts by manufacturers to “play” with the target audience at the level of provocation or the formation of an associative connection suggest that competition in the mature market of meat products leads industry participants to look for non-standard advertising moves.
One of the most common ways of working with the target audience is traditionally the invitation of media people. With a strong positive brand of the “star”, this always plays into the hands of the manufacturer, however, if the brand’s advertising face itself gets into an unpleasant story, even if it has nothing to do with the manufacturer, this always negatively affects its brand. The Myasnitsky Ryad got into such a situation, the main character of the commercials of which is Dmitry Dyuzhev.
Less resonance was caused by the advertisement of the Good Deed sausage, which was advertised in 2016 by Grigory Leps and Timati. It is also made in a provocative manner and plays up the situation with food smuggling after the imposition of sanctions. Questions were raised not only by the plot of the video, but also by the expediency of the participation of singers in advertising. It is interesting that today it is almost impossible to find it on the Internet: it has been deleted on almost all sites where it was previously presented. However, objectively speaking, this advertisement was not scandalous, it played up the current situation for the country, and also showed the financial capabilities of the company, which was able to invite two well-known pop singers. In other words, despite the mention of product characteristics, advertising was more of an image character.
Summing up, we can draw the following conclusion. In the meat market, scandalous and provocative advertising does not take root for the reason that consumers have less emotional attachment to food products than to non-food products, where scandals can cause a significant resonance. As the analysis shows, scandalous advertising is a tool of large brands that have their own public position, consciously going for a serious provocation, attracting attention to themselves and temporarily pulling it away from competitors. For the segment of meat products and food products in general, advertising based on product characteristics (quality, composition, price) and consumption situation, preferably played with humor, is more suitable. In addition, if the company chooses to participate in advertising "stars", it is important not to make a mistake, so that the shaken reputation of the media person does not lead to a decrease in brand sales.
Candidate of Economics, member of the Guild of Marketers,
managing partner of a consulting company "Foresight 24",
expert on market trends and consumer behavior (project "Laboratory of trends").
16 Mar '18