Any publicity is good publicity? Think Again!

The acronym AIDA (Attention-Interest-Desire-Action) is

quite popular in the marketing world. The first letter in

AIDA stands for attention (or awareness). We also extend

it to mean publicity, which we discuss in this write-up.

Positive attention may end up increasing the client base,

sales, as also a good name for the company. There are

campaigns which become classic, and stay in the

consumers minds, some even becoming an identity for

the companies which they promote.

And then there are campaigns which get the same amount

of publicity, this time unwanted, and become dark spots

on the prestige of the company. Here we examine some of

these campaigns, which the respective companies would

anytime be eager to sweep under the carpet

Starting with the seemingly most popular of all-

The Ford Figo Gaffe

Advertising agency JWT India came into controversy when its

employees released three photographs of a print campaign to

promote the Ford Figo.

One of the photographs shows the picture of a man who looked

quite similar to Silvio Berlusconi (the former president of Italy, he is

charged of paying for sex with an underage woman), while skimpily

dressed girls were bound and gagged in the trunk, to depict the

huge trunk space the car boasts of.

Worse, the ads were released just a few days after Indian

parliament formulated a major anti-rape law (the Nirbhaya tragedy)

The entire episode faced criticism in the global media, and led to the firing of some officials of JWT India.

Nothing Sucks...Really?

Even the Scandivian electronic appliances company Electrolux

wasnt spared when it decided to launch the campaign

Nothing Sucks like an Electrolux in USA in early 1970s. (the

campaign was quite popular in UK)

The word sucks in America had an entirely different

derogatory meaning, and the company attracted unwanted

hype and became a part of many jokes until the campaign was

taken off air.

Lost in Translation

Sometimes, negative publicity doesnt create much of an impact the way it did

in the above episodes.

When the American restaurant brand Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)

opened their first restaurant in China in 1987, it extended its Finger Lickin

Good campaign to the country, by billboards in Chinese language like the

adjoining one. Translated to English, the words mean Eat your fingers off

This episode is a classic case study to see what happens when you carry your

campaign between countries, without considering the language barrier.

Since KFC was relatively newer in the Chinese market that time, it was able to

recover. Today, China has become the biggest market for KFC outside the US.

Lost in Translation-Part 2

When campaigns achieve great successes in a particular region, the

companies want to take them to different geographies.

The California Milk Processor Board didnt take cue from the KFC story

when it carried its famous Got Milk? campaign from the US to

Mexico, neglecting the language barrier.

Mexico, dominated by Spanish speaking population, the campaign took

a hit as the translation of the adjoining words in Spanish meant Are

you lactating?

Resultantly, the company shelved the campaign and created a new one

"Familia Amor y Leche" which translates to Family, Love and Milk. It

recovered after spending a lot of money for this campaign and is doing well now.

Campaigns back home Feel the shiver?

Volkswagen India was too excited about its German Engineering aspect that it decided to create a buzz among the

readers of leading newspapers in India including the TOI.

The company started by giving front page ads for its Vento

model, which had a sensor pasted on the 2nd page. When the

page flipped, the sensor ran into action, and a recorded voice

began enumerating the new features of the car.

The campaign got lot of attention and attracted praise from the

media, until the company decided to take it to the next level.

Volkswagen issued another full page ad (for video, click here), with nothing but the first page headline Feel the

shiver of excitement? When the page was turned, a light-sensitive box in the left bottom went to action again, this

time it was vibrating vigorously.

The ad again got peoples attention but for the wrong reasons. Twitterati mocked the campaign by posting some

funny tweets.

#AgarMaKaDudhPiaHaiTo

And finally, the most hilarious one. Fortis wanted to engage people on twitter to celebrate World Breast feeding

awareness week in August 2012.

For this purpose, MammaMia (a twitter handle

of a Fortis initiative) created a hashtag

#AgarMaKaDudhPiaHaiTo and invited twitter

folks to post creative one-liners.

The brand did get many posts, but not as it

expected (due to obvious reasons). People

tweeted crazily, also hash-tagged other celebs like Sunny Leone, Kamaal Khan, etc to gather more crowd.

At last, Fortis made a lousy attempt to save its grace by the following post:

But the damage was already done.

All the above stories show how bad the situation may become if a brand gets negative publicity. Things become worse,

if the brand fails to handle the consumers flak. How then do the companies fix it?

Research recommends having a response team set up. While doing so, it assumes that every consumer responds to

a campaign in a similar way.

But, every consumer has a different level of involvement with the ad. Some have product knowledge, some dont... Just

because a few employees in the company like it, doesnt mean the campaign will be a hit

Still, a situation may be avoided by-

1. By Acknowledging the mistake, the consumers may empathise with the company it may even somewhat rise

in their eyes. Had Fortis admitted its mistake in the above incident, and then apologised, things would have

been better.

2. Damage control from the top was done well in the case of JWT India. Both Ford and JWTs global heads

apologised too.

Most importantly, it needs to be seen whether companies learn from the past, or repeat the same mistakes again