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Yet another advertising agency has opened its mouth just far enough to insert a foot, this time in London.
It seems that the Outdoor Advertising Association decided to conduct a 14-day campaign to show the effectiveness of billboards and signage.
The organization tapped the Beta Agency to create the campaign, which came up with a headline that read:
Career Women Make Bad Mothers
Hundreds of mothers banded together in online forums like Mumsnet to express their outrage. One mother put it well: “It doesn’t show that outdoor advertising works, it just shows that controversial advertising works.”
Needless to say, the campaign was pulled.
Any seven-year old can get attention using shock value. Please don’t be one.
P.S. Speaking of seven year olds… check out the agency’s (sort of) apology here.
Michele Miller is a writer, speaker, and consultant on ways to capture the heart of the female customer. The co-author of The Soccer Mom Myth, she consults with businesses of all sizes across North America
“Career Men Make Bad Fathers.” Hmmm…
Unbelievable. I especially love the line in the apology that states, “The reason we’ve waited until now to apologize is that the strength and nature of the reaction to the poster, specifically on Mumsnet, shocked us. At first we were not sure what to do.”
Nice way to vet the campaign before the launch.
They actually do make a valid point, one that Roy Williams makes time and time again. To quote Roy, “The risk of insult is the price of clarity.”
What they proved is that the power of your message is the most important thing. A powerful message will work in any media.
They put up an extremely powerful message (that insulted many people myself included – heck, I was insulted by your blog title:-) and got an extremely powerful response.
How many of us are willing to write our ads so powerfully and risk insult in the process? Advertising is like a magnet, its power to attract equal to its power to repel.
You’re right about the “risk of insult being worth the price of clarity,” Phil, but the danger comes when insult outweighs the effectiveness of an ad. If the agency had thought out the strategy and PLANNED for insult, that would have been another matter. This campaign seems to have been created on the fly without much thought other than impact, and you see where it got them.
Michelle, you’re absolutely right. The campaign failed to deliver what it wanted to deliver – that their billboards & signs work – but only because the message they used to try to prove it was so powerful, it became the issue, not the fact that the boards got attention.
And that proves the point Roy has said for years – the message is more important than the media.
The irony is wonderful:-)
Yes, it is.