Author: Riley Kimball
“Go get DirecTV. Right now. I’ll wait.” So says Kate Upton, buxom swimsuit model, in a 30 second commercial for the satellite TV company. She says nothing more but rolls around on the sand a bit to expose her cleavage while flashing a sensual smile. An ad for Belvedere vodka features an image of a smiling man hugging a woman from behind as she tries frantically to escape his grasp. The caption reads, “Unlike some people, Belvedere always goes down smoothly.” And a recent Reebok sign advises, “Cheat on your girlfriend, not on your workout.” These marketing campaigns are offensive and misogynistic, but the condemnations they receive from the public and in the news are making them incredibly successful.
Companies today exploit the potential for a commercial to go viral and the notion that any press is good press to achieve brand recognition. Scandal and controversy get attention, and as a result, the more offensive the marketing, the more the public hears about it. The aforementioned examples are just recent cases; Dr. Pepper’s “Ten” achieved instant public awareness with the ubiquitous controversy over its tagline, “It’s not for women.” Two and a Half Men, already an inexplicably popular show, achieved series-high ratings in its first episode following Charlie Sheen’s infamous meltdown.
Some assume that shocking, offensive advertising is the product of short-sighted and small-minded marketers who simply overlook the implicit meanings of the messages they send. On the contrary, marketers know exactly what they are doing. Instead of buying ad space on TV for weeks or months or layout space in a magazine, they make a single ad purchase for a short time, then pull the racy or questionable commercial. The controversy that swirls around in the commercial’s wake exposes it to far greater an audience than the marketers could have otherwise hoped to reach with a traditional commercial.
The process is natural: discussing a commercial requires you to examine the source of the controversy. Thus, what is making this issue exponentially worse are those who share the videos or pictures on Facebook to discuss how offensive they are. By doing so, they expose every one of their hundreds of Facebook friends to the advertisement. Even when posting them in protest, the people most offended by these commercials help the companies by bringing their advertisement to ever larger audiences. The Dr. Pepper Ten commercial has about 2.5 million views on YouTube. The company wins when the outraged play into its strategy of gaining publicity through controversy.
This model of success has become so reliable that the benefit to the company far outweighs the ill will it begets. Reebok probably spent a few thousand dollars creating its “Cheat on your girlfriend, not on your workout” poster. The ad only ever existed in a gym in Germany, but because it sparked outrage, it has become international news and a viral sensation. The cost of bad publicity is negligible compared to the brand awareness raised by the campaigns. The cost-benefit ratio of producing that advertisement must have been unfathomably favorable to Reebok.
Outrage, no matter how justified, is a victory for a company. To stop offensive, misogynistic ads from being produced, marketers should not be able to exploit the publicity they bring. There are a number of solutions that, if taken by a number of people, would show companies that such advertisements are unacceptable. Stop buying Reeboks, and don’t support DirecTV. If individuals assume responsibility for taking small, thoughtful measures like these, the worst offending companies will suffer. A tempered response in this case will solve the problem sooner than outrage will.
Riley Kimball is a senior DWA major. He can be reached at kimball@oxy.edu.
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