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Toronto Advertising Campaigns That Cause
Controversy
With the rise of alternative Toronto marketing,
including user and consumer generated ad
content, there have also come questions
of appropriateness. There is no central
clearing house for ideas, in the viral
marketing world. There is no one point
of view through which everything is
filtered. This can create problems for
companies who put up advertising that
might be deemed offensive.
You may have heard about the controversy
involving Volkswagen. It started in
January when a British newspaper
reported that Volkswagen paid two design
professionals to create a
professional-quality car commercial that
was making the rounds online, in viral
fashion.
The ad portrays a suicide bomber
attempting to blow up a cafe by
detonating a bomb from inside his VW
Polo. However, the car contains the
explosion, prompting the tag line,
"Polo. Small but tough." The ads
creators claim that ad was never
intended for public consumption, and
Volkswagen has vehemently denied having
anything to do with the clever but
controversial ad (to the point where
it's now suing the creators).
Still, many believe the company was
secretly involved. The debate has been a
regular feature on marketing blogs since
the ad's release and is responsible for
a widespread viral marketing campaign.
The video has been uploaded to numerous
video-sharing sites, and has been posted
on internet message forums and chat
rooms all over the internet.
This debate touches on a facet of
content created without accountability,
namely the fact that without
accountability, many more of our
politically correct sensibilities are
liable to be violated. The Volkswagen
video touches on some of the more
volatile flashpoints in our culture
today: violence, terrorism, and
political discourse in advertising.
Terrorism is a large issue for us today.
We are currently engaged in a war
against it. We struggle with the idea of
suicide bombers. Most people cannot
understand how and why someone would
choose to kill themselves by killing as
many other people as they can. It is an
act, and an ideology, that makes us
uncomfortable. This kind of discomfort
is not a traditional tack to take in
advertising. Traditional advertising is
based upon making people comfortable,
making them happy, selling them a life
that is better than the one they live.
Political discourse in Toronto advertising is
equally controversial, for different
reasons. It does not make us
uncomfortable in the same way, but it
does represent a tension. In an age in
which people are increasingly jaded to
politics and believe, by and large, that
all politics is bought and paid for,
blurring the line further by
incorporating political statements into
advertising enters a gray zone that
bridges advertising and news.
Political advertisements are already the
subject of controversy, and they are
explicit statements, with the intent to
sway political thought. Incorporating
elements of current political debate
into advertisements meant to sell a
particular product further blurs the
line between political statement and
money. That line is already far too
blurry for some.
T-Mobile was also propelled into the
spotlight by an equally controversial
incident. In late February, socialite
Paris Hilton publicly announced her
T-Mobile Sidekick had been hacked.
Subsequently, her famous friends'
contact information was posted on the
Web. Although one might assume security
concerns would spell doom for the
wireless carrier, the incident actually
boosted Sidekick sales. This prompted a
few fellow marketers to jokingly
question whether the hack was, in fact,
an accident.
This may seem like a stretch, the
province of crazy conspiracy theorists,
but the boost in Sidekick sales is
unmistakable. Perhaps it is not so far
fetched that the company orchestrated
the incident to raise the Sidekick’s
profile in the public consciousness.
VW and T-Mobile may not be behind the
Internet scandals that brought them so
much press, but these incidents got me
thinking: is alternative marketing
poised to become the principal arrow in
a media planner's quiver?
After all, the old adage is that any
press is good press. Perhaps these new
marketing techniques are merely proving
that in spectacular fashion. With the
ability and the freedom to take the kind
of risk that would create this kind of
controversy, we are perhaps seeing the
ultimate proof that anything that gets
your company or product’s name out there
is not a bad thing, but instead a good
thing.
User-generated content means that
content is created from a myriad of
different perspectives, both personal
and cultural. People from a variety of
viewpoints, with a variety of life
experience may, perhaps, use or be
interested in the same product. This
means that advertising for this product
can now speak to all of those diverse
and disparate groups, in their voice and
in a language they understand and
appreciate.
Fresh ideas are easier to attain, and
cheaper to produce in this
user-generated content model. Because
the majority of the content of
advertising is created free of charge by
the consumers of said product, and the
company doesn't have to make expensive
ad buys on television, the cost of
advertising is reduced dramatically. The
only major outlay that the company makes
is the web space and hosting to get the
consumer-generated content out there.
Some companies (such as Converse) also
offer a cash prize to the “best” ad
created by consumers as an incentive to
lure them into involvement. Money is a
great human motivator.
Still, this is a much cheaper
alternative to the traditional
television marketing campaign, involving
paying for creative, actors, directors,
design, and the air time to get the ad
out to people. In traditional
advertising, all of these costs are
borne by the company. In alternative
marketing schemes, the majority of these
costs are outlaid to the consumers of
the product. It’s a clever switch.
However, the trade off is always that
out-sourcing creative processes
inherently carries a loss of control of
the output of those creative processes.
You don't get to control what is made
that carries ties to your product,
either official or unofficial. Of
course, a company can always refuse to
put a piece of user-generated content on
it’s official website, but that doesn't
always stop it’s dissemination. The
beauty and the curse of the internet is
that it is free and open for all to use,
and free upload sites such as YouTube
and Flickr make it possible for anyone
to make their work available to the
general population. If the ad is
creative and clever, as was the case
with the disputed Volkswagen ad, it just
may become an internet sensation.
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