Advertising can be challenging and being creative to attract the customers is important to achieve competitive advantage. Some ads are extremely successful but others fails to woo the customers and sometimes even have negative effective on Brand image. Here are some examples of few Ad campaigns that failed miserably.
Cadbury 5Star a popular chocolate brand found itself in a fix over its latest Ad campaign #Eat5SatrDoNothing. The advertisement asked one main question "what should u do while eating a 5Star?"
The ad film shows a elderly woman asking a young guy eating 5Star to help her pick up her fallen stick, but this guy is busy eating his 5Star and the lady has to help her self which eventually saves her from a mishap. There is a voice over in end saying 'Kabhi Kuch Na Karke Bhi Dekho, Eat 5Star and do nothing"
This campaign was also not taken well by the masses because it was indirectly motivating the youth to do nothing and encouraging them to turn lazy.
This was not taken to well by the youth slamming this ad as an insensitive and stupid idea. Portraying the youth in this inaccurate why with the increasing voice of the youth was indeed a bad idea. The Ad campaign coming from Cadbury was a shock as it has one of the most liked and famous ads in its portfolio. This ad campaign faced major back lashing on social media platforms.
Dont Shave It, Veet It
This ad campaign featuring Sharddha Kapoor and target audience of teenage girls trying different methods of hair removal. The girl is shown is pain while using a razor to shave her legs and Sharddha Kapoor tells her that razors are for boys and its not a toy. The is trying to state that razors are for boys with mustaches and beards but for girls the solution is Veet Hair Removal with a tagline 'Dont Shave it, Just Veet it'.
This ad tried to prove girls better than boys and jumped into body shamming. This showcased a negative image of the brand.
Coca-Cola Vanilla Failure
In 2004, Coca-Cola India launched its first extension flavor Vanilla Coke. The concept of Ice creme floats in coke was very famous in urban cities. It targeted urban teens and young adults. But Coke Vanilla failed miserably in the Indian Markets. The ad was played on channels like MTV, HBO and AXN which are youth centric channels.
The first reason of failure was the taste which was not appealing to the consumers. Then the other problem was they targeted the wrong segments. Wrong positioning and mismatch of target group and communication. The advertising was seen irrelevant and became the reason for Vanilla Coke Failure. This commercial was out of context and and no connection with Coke as a brand.
Kalyan Jewellers
Kalyan Jewellers's brand image was at a risk following its new ad featuring Amitabh Bachchan and his daughter. This ad showed the father daughter duo going to a bank to return the extra pension received in their bank account. The ad portrayed a bad image of the bankers and which started a boycott and dharna against the Jewelers.
They eventually had to withdraw the advertisement due to the heavy back lashing and protest against it. With hurting the sentiments of the bankers the brand image of Kalyan was also affected. Bankers were trending Boycott Kalyan Jewellers on Twitter. All India Bank Officers' Confederation, with around 3,20,000 employees was threatened to file a case against the jewellers. Big B's tweet aggregated the bank employees more which praised the ad after the slamming.
In response Kalyan Jewellers statement that there was no intention of hurting anybody's sentiment. Due to the hurt of sentiments which was unintended the Ad was revoked and an apology statement was issued.
ZOMATO Print Ad
Zomato found itself in a soup because of its offensive print ads with bold letters M.C.(Mac n' cheese) and B.C.(Butter Chicken). The ad started trending on twitter Facebook for all the wrong reasons call the ad sexist, cheap and crass.
The campaign also featured pop culture thoughts like "Acche din are finally here", "Bol Baby bol Malai Tikka Roll!" etc. Experts agree that the creative sentiment behind this campaign was bad and could tarnish the brand image.
