With the large price tag and record viewers, do companies create a “PR crisis” on purpose by using controversial ads that keep people talking?
Ah, the Super Bowl, the event that used to signify the end of another NFL season. Now, it is more about the hype and stories leading up to the game than the game that is actually played on the field. And let’s not forget the most popular aspect of the game, even to non-sports fans: the commercials.
Last year, more than 111 million Americans tuned in to watch the New York Giants win their second Super Bowl in five years. Due to those numbers, companies paid an average of $3.5 million for a 30 second ad. With the inflated cost of these ads it begs the question: are companies satisfied with just 30 seconds?
Last year’s event was the first time that companies “leaked” their ads early, allowing journalists and the public to critique the ads prior to and creating an even larger buzz leading into the game. That trend has carried over into this year with an interesting trend connecting the most talked about ads. Controversy.
Volkswagen, Coca-Cola and Taco Bell have each released a commercial riddled in apparent controversy.
Volkswagen takes a white male from Minnesota and gives him a Jamaican accent and a “Don’t worry, be happy” attitude after riding in his new car, conveniently a VW beetle. Some organizations called the ad “insensitive” and “racist.” A spokesperson for multicultural marketing agency Dove Marketing
even told USA Today, “It’s pretty horrific.”
Coke released an online teaser of their commercial, showing a group of men in traditional Middle Eastern clothing leading camels through a desert to a mirage of a giant Coke bottle. They soon see cowboys, Las Vegas showgirls and a motley crew of “Mad Max” marauders racing by them as they struggle to get their camels to cooperate. Arab-American groups have since come out against the ad, saying the ad is racist and “is portraying Arabs as backward and foolish camel jockeys, and they have no chance to win in the world.”
Taco Bell’s spot, which has already been pulled due to the company’s desire to have anyone “misinterpret the intent of the ad,” was set to feature a man bringing a tray of vegetables to a game day party with a voice-over saying, “Veggies on game day is like punting on fourth and one. It’s a cop out, and secretly, people kind of hate you for it.” Complaints have been made that the commercial encourages people not to eat their vegetables.
It seems as though in the hyper-sensitive culture that we live in, someone is bound to get insulted or a message misconstrued as being given “in poor taste.”
My first question is the obvious one. Why can’t people just take these commercials for what they are – pieces of entertainment not intended to insult or diminish any person, culture or food group?
But that brings me to an interesting follow-up. With the amount of money and skill invested into the creation of these ads, is the controversy intended?
The purpose of a commercial is to increase awareness and notoriety of your product. And if there’s one thing that daytime talk shows, reality television and news broadcasts have shown me it’s that Americans love controversy. We talk about it, dissect every possible (and sometimes improbable) aspect and outcome, and then we discuss it some more.
And that’s what has happened with these commercials. The issues and controversy in these ads are large enough to get people talking but small
enough to be easily dodged with the common “statement of clarity”.
So are these companies really that insensitive and naïve to place the controversy in the ads without noticing, or are they that smart as to place enough controversy to get people riled up just enough to bring it to the forefront of their social media news feed without creating a PR nightmare?
I guess it’s up to the public to judge.
