Controversial Advertisements

[00:00:13] Hello and welcome to Reputation Matters, a show about how companies survive crisis and the lessons that we can learn from it. With me on the episode, as always, Mitu Samar, founder of MNN Strategy. Mitu, welcome to the show.

[00:00:26] Thank you, Anupam.

[00:00:27] Very exciting episode because today we've got not one, not two, but three case studies with three prominent ad campaigns that I'm sure our audience will relate to, will remember. All of them have happened in the last, I would say, less than 10 years.

[00:00:40] And it is about ad campaigns that created a furor among the public and caused a certain backlash.

[00:00:47] And we're talking about three brands out of which two are Indian, one is global. Mitu, let's jump to it.

[00:00:52] First, let's tell our audience which are these three brands we are talking about and let's start with the first one.

[00:00:57] Sure. So before we get to which brands we are talking about, let me just set a little context in terms of why campaigns are relevant from the reputational lens.

[00:01:08] Because reputation is something which is long term, while campaigns are literally short term and they come and they go, people forget.

[00:01:15] Some of them really are memorable and they make a mark.

[00:01:19] But do they really influence reputation?

[00:01:24] Fortunately, unfortunately, they definitely do.

[00:01:26] And we'll see by these three examples and what we have tried doing, Anupam, is taken the three examples from three different lens that we will discuss, keeping reputation in mind and focus around that.

[00:01:40] So the three brands, like you mentioned, we'll start with Zara.

[00:01:45] We'll talk about Layers Short Ad and the Amul Ad.

[00:01:49] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:01:50] I want you, you know, what you just said also made me think about the fact that how important is messaging, advertising?

[00:01:57] You mentioned campaigns.

[00:01:59] Yeah.

[00:01:59] I'm talking if you just take two steps back and talk about advertising, how is advertising important to reputation?

[00:02:05] Something that gets built up over a very long period of time.

[00:02:08] Correct.

[00:02:09] And at least two of the three brands that you mentioned, which is Zara and Amul, have been around for very long.

[00:02:13] Yes.

[00:02:14] So in general, why and how is advertising important for reputation for a company?

[00:02:21] So slightly technical, but there are three different kinds of media platforms that one can leverage when it comes to, you know, giving away their brand messages.

[00:02:32] Right.

[00:02:32] So one is earned media, like, you know, other people talk great things about you.

[00:02:38] Second is the paid media, which is, say, for example, advertisement, where you create a messaging that you wish to let the world know about it, and then put it across variety of platform for which you pay and get those opportunities.

[00:02:54] And finally, nowadays, which is extremely popular is the owned media, like your social media platforms or your website, which again, organizations are leveraging quite a lot to give away their side of the story.

[00:03:08] The second one, the advertisement as paid media platform has been there as one of the initial forms of marketing and extremely popular because of two reasons.

[00:03:23] Number one, it gives the narrator or it gives the companies or the brands an opportunity to tell the story the way they want to tell.

[00:03:33] Nobody can influence it.

[00:03:35] That's number one.

[00:03:36] And secondly, because they are paying for it, the spaces, who is going to see it?

[00:03:42] Where are they going to see it?

[00:03:43] Under what circumstances they're going to see it?

[00:03:45] A lot of that also can be controlled.

[00:03:48] So it just helps companies shape the brand narrative in a very controlled manner.

[00:03:56] Sure, sure.

[00:03:56] And that's why it's so popular and that's how it, if done over a long period of time, it helps in shaping their reputation.

[00:04:05] Of course, one ad once in five years kind of thing, it doesn't do anything.

[00:04:10] My strong recommendation to such companies, don't blow your money for one ad once in five years.

[00:04:16] We do have companies coming and telling us, oh, we've completed 25 years.

[00:04:21] We want to do a front page ad in leading publications.

[00:04:25] And my strong recommendation to them all the time is use that money to reward your customers or to reward your employees.

[00:04:33] Don't waste it on advertisement.

[00:04:36] Okay, let's start.

[00:04:37] Let's start with Zara.

[00:04:38] The backdrop is the 7th October 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas.

[00:04:44] That happened.

[00:04:45] And obviously a lot of people say that the world changed after that.

[00:04:48] And in December of 2023 came this campaign.

[00:04:52] All of us know it now on hindsight, obviously, as the jacket campaign.

[00:04:56] Yeah.

[00:04:56] Tell us about it.

[00:04:57] So this jacket campaign was launched by Zara.

[00:05:03] While it was like any other campaign that they launched as a sales trick, right?

[00:05:08] Any organization does that.

[00:05:10] That whenever they want to promote a particular product category or product, a particular clothing line,

[00:05:17] they do have, you know, advertisements planned around this to promote the category.

[00:05:23] So with a similar objective in mind, Zara wanted to launch its new category of clothing and they launched this, the jacket campaign.

[00:05:33] But the differentiator this time was that the setup of the studio where this was shot or the scenes behind the model that was coming out was not very pleasing.

[00:05:49] From the eyes of possibly most of the viewers because it showed very, a lot of destruction around, a lot of rubbles around.

[00:06:00] And it looked like a war zone.

[00:06:03] And while Zara said that it tried to showcase the craftsmanship and wanted to keep the focus on the clothing line.

[00:06:13] But what people focused on is the background.

[00:06:16] And that caused huge uproar because they related it to the Israel-Hamas war and called it extremely insensitive.

[00:06:24] Insensitive, insensitive, tone deaf.

[00:06:26] And I think that the hashtag was boycott Zara.

[00:06:30] Boycott Zara.

[00:06:30] Because obviously on social media, boycott is, it's either boycott or ban or whatever.

[00:06:34] So that happened.

[00:06:36] The brand trended for all the wrong reasons.

[00:06:39] What was the company's response?

[00:06:42] We are living in a world of social media where information passes in seconds, sometimes even in microseconds.

[00:06:48] The company responded two days later.

[00:06:51] So I think that is the biggest lesson of this case that we are discussing is we need to be very mindful of when do we respond to a crisis.

[00:07:03] They happen, like I keep always repeating.

[00:07:06] Mistakes happen, crisis happen, all of that happen.

[00:07:08] But how and when are you responding to it is the most critical aspect of crisis management.

[00:07:14] And the brand Zara responded two days later through a social media statement.

[00:07:20] Their statement was good.

[00:07:22] They regretted it.

[00:07:24] They gave a clarification that they were not trying.

[00:07:28] They had no intention.

[00:07:30] In fact, they clarified that the concept was agreed upon in July 2023.

[00:07:36] It was shot in September 2023.

[00:07:39] Much before the attacks.

[00:07:39] So much before the attacks, right?

[00:07:41] But people didn't look at it this way.

[00:07:46] So all clarifications came, but they came with a delay.

[00:07:51] And unfortunately, they were not believed.

[00:07:54] I want to go to the second one now.

[00:07:56] You know, we'll do a collective lesson from all three campaigns later.

[00:07:59] But oh boy, the second ad is from India.

[00:08:02] Yes.

[00:08:03] And that caused a massive fear because it was not to do with geopolitics or anything.

[00:08:08] It had to do with safety of women.

[00:08:11] That's a sensitive topic, which I think a lot of people feel very strongly about.

[00:08:15] And I don't think that there are any different points of view on this.

[00:08:19] And before we go into the specific ad campaign, you know, Meitu,

[00:08:22] I want to spend some time talking with you about personal hygiene and the kind of advertising it has.

[00:08:27] So that the ad campaigns, okay, which is specific to men, always has to do with some slant, something which has to do with women, whether it is fairness creams, whether it is deodorant.

[00:08:38] And this is an example of deodorant that we're going to talk about.

[00:08:41] And that also has had a very, you know, a very patchy history, so to say, over the past 10-20 years about how these products are put in the public eye with ad campaigns that are of a specific type.

[00:08:55] Because apparently, that's the way it sells.

[00:08:57] You know, being a woman and being in charge of something like reputation, what's your view on this?

[00:09:02] You know, how has this messaging played out over the last 20 years?

[00:09:06] And, you know, before we go into that, any thoughts on that?

[00:09:10] So, two thoughts actually.

[00:09:13] Number one, whenever it's a men product, like a Dio, of course, it's used by men and women both, when it is meant for men, or even soaps and the creams, etc., when it is meant for men,

[00:09:26] the way it is showcased is that if you will use this, women will get attracted to you.

[00:09:32] On the other hand, when things are for women, like again, a Dio or a face cream or a soap or anything like that, the message or the undertone of the message at least is that if you will use this, you will get a great guy.

[00:09:46] As in, you know, so it's always the, so to say, somebody is obliging you.

[00:09:51] So, the tone is always different and for which every time, I think it's been at least 30 years that I have been observing ads and ad campaigns and messages around brand.

[00:10:04] This conversation is on for the last 30 years and it still continues, right?

[00:10:10] The example that we will talk of, Leia Short, just to break the suspense, is pretty much in the same category.

[00:10:19] But what is heartening to note is that A, people are being sensitive about it.

[00:10:24] They are raising their voices around it.

[00:10:27] And some brands like, you know, Dove comes to my top recall right now.

[00:10:32] They are doing campaigns which are also, you know, talking about how women are empowered or they are, you know, in charge of their own destiny.

[00:10:43] And it is finding the right guy and just getting married to him is not everybody's life's goal.

[00:10:49] It can be different.

[00:10:50] So, all these messages are now coming in.

[00:10:53] But the broader messaging still remains the same, unfortunately.

[00:10:57] So, that was the backdrop I wanted to bring into this case study because it's very important for our audience to understand that

[00:11:03] given that kind of history, legacy, backdrop, baggage, whatever word you want to use, this ad seemed to be in that line.

[00:11:11] Okay.

[00:11:11] It features four men inside a shop or a mall.

[00:11:15] I don't know what it is.

[00:11:16] Looking at a woman, sorry, who's going to select a deodorant or whatever.

[00:11:20] And then they say something which is pretty cheap, you know.

[00:11:23] And then that, thankfully, when the ad came out, there was a massive outro.

[00:11:27] And I think the brand was required to take it on.

[00:11:30] So, just walk us through what happened.

[00:11:32] So, like you rightly pointed out that the ad had four men and a woman and lewd remarks were passed around it.

[00:11:40] Of course, it was a double meaning sentence.

[00:11:42] And a lot of social media voice or even news media, actually voices around the country, across mediums, started coming out saying that, you know, this is not the appropriate messaging at all.

[00:11:59] And so much so that people even wondered that how, because in the statement of the company, eventually, they said that they had all the right permissions before they released the ad.

[00:12:11] But what, you know, confuses everyone is that how did they even get a permission to release an ad like this?

[00:12:18] Because it was outrightly objectionable.

[00:12:22] So, that is that.

[00:12:25] Like, you know, people are still questioning about the rightness of the ad.

[00:12:30] But what I wanted to highlight about, because this is already quite discussed that the ad was not in the right spirit.

[00:12:38] What I want to talk about is the fact that a company came out with a statement saying that we had all the permissions and we are sorry if it, you know, impacted anybody's sentiments.

[00:12:52] We were not.

[00:12:53] It was not meant to be.

[00:12:55] And so on.

[00:12:57] The lens with which I am looking at it is that they are using advertisement as a tool of publicity at the cost of any publicity.

[00:13:09] And because this brand particularly is not so well known, if it creates an uproar, people pay attention to it.

[00:13:19] Sooner or later, if it would have released a regular ad, possibly nobody would have noticed it.

[00:13:26] It would have just gone ahead.

[00:13:27] So they are using any publicity is a good publicity approach.

[00:13:34] That's not going to work.

[00:13:40] I mean, look at it this way.

[00:13:42] If I am a client who comes to you and says that, listen, this is my budget and I just want to create telka.

[00:13:47] What would you tell me?

[00:13:50] Any publicity is good publicity.

[00:13:52] I create this kind of an ad campaign and sales at any cost.

[00:13:56] For whatever it's worth, that might result in some bump up in sales.

[00:14:00] Now, whether that is that a good goal or is reputation or what?

[00:14:04] I don't know.

[00:14:04] Like, I'm kind of confused out here that for a brand, for a company, for the promoters or founders, when they do something like this,

[00:14:11] I'm sure that they would have had some idea about the kind of backlash it will create.

[00:14:14] Yeah.

[00:14:15] And if they're saying that for increasing sales, my question to you is, is that really worth it?

[00:14:20] Maybe one quarter of sales.

[00:14:22] Precisely.

[00:14:22] For your reputation.

[00:14:23] What do you think?

[00:14:24] So, exactly the thought, right?

[00:14:26] Like, is any publicity a good publicity?

[00:14:29] Answer is no.

[00:14:31] Absolutely no.

[00:14:33] Because people never take you seriously.

[00:14:35] You will always be a second fiddle if at all you are in consideration set.

[00:14:41] Highly likely you will not even fall in the consideration set.

[00:14:45] So, strong advice.

[00:14:49] Even if my client tells me very clearly that they want to create tahelka, they want to drive sales very clearly.

[00:14:58] All of that.

[00:14:59] There are ways to do that.

[00:15:00] In a regular manner also.

[00:15:03] You don't have to.

[00:15:04] I'm not saying that don't take paths which are, you know, off the regular path.

[00:15:12] Or I'm not even recommending always take the beaten path.

[00:15:15] What I am trying to say is know your good or bad.

[00:15:19] Because people would not want to associate with something in the long term if it's established to be in the negative category.

[00:15:29] What happened later?

[00:15:30] If I remember correctly, the Advertising Standards Council of India, ASCII, got tons of complaints.

[00:15:36] And then what happened after that?

[00:15:37] They got complaints.

[00:15:38] In fact, the Delhi Commissioner of Women, Commissioner of Women, when she wrote a complaint to Delhi Police FIR requesting that to be pulled down.

[00:15:50] So, all of that, you know, kind of complaints came out.

[00:15:55] And like we discussed, there was huge uproar around it.

[00:15:59] And eventually company apologized, like issued that statement.

[00:16:03] They pulled the ad down.

[00:16:05] In fact, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting also insisted that the ad comes off.

[00:16:09] So, ad finally came off.

[00:16:11] But the brand got a recall.

[00:16:16] But Anupam, I have to ask you this question.

[00:16:19] If we were not discussing this particular case, would you even know about Layershot as a brand?

[00:16:27] I didn't know about them before I saw the ad.

[00:16:30] Yeah.

[00:16:31] And or we would have seen that ad.

[00:16:33] We would have thought of it.

[00:16:34] But now two years down the line, it was in 2022.

[00:16:37] Have you ever, you know, considered about this brand ever again?

[00:16:42] No.

[00:16:42] That's the point.

[00:16:43] Overwhelming no.

[00:16:45] So, that's it.

[00:16:46] Yeah.

[00:16:47] And we've left a very loved brand for the last case study on this episode.

[00:16:51] It's a brand that has unforgettable campaigns throughout generations.

[00:16:56] It's one of India's most prominent, most loved consumer brand.

[00:17:01] That's Amul.

[00:17:02] And it landed itself into controversy, which is something that you do not find very often with Amul because their campaigns are always relatable.

[00:17:09] They are topical.

[00:17:10] They are topical.

[00:17:10] They always have something that connects the people's emotions with a certain topic or theme that's going on in the country.

[00:17:18] And in this case, it was the India-China geopolitical situation.

[00:17:24] What was the ad about and what happened?

[00:17:26] Walk us through.

[00:17:27] So, as usual, Amul girl talks about anything which is topical.

[00:17:32] The whole ad space also is called Amul topicals, right?

[00:17:36] So, whatever is trending, whatever is conversational in today's day and age, Amul comes up with the messaging around this.

[00:17:45] So, resonating with the government's feeling of Made in India and also aligning with the overall thoughts around banning Chinese products or there was a phase when this was going very, very strongly.

[00:18:03] TikTok was banned, of course.

[00:18:04] Precisely.

[00:18:05] TikTok was banned in our country and so on.

[00:18:08] And so, at that point in time, Amul topicals showed that the girl was fighting, Amul girl was fighting a dragon saying, exit India.

[00:18:16] And at the bottom, it said, Amul made in India.

[00:18:20] I think the line was, exit the dragon or exit dragon or something because that's a very famous movie.

[00:18:25] Correct.

[00:18:25] Yeah.

[00:18:26] So, they tried aligning it.

[00:18:28] There was a pun intended and so on.

[00:18:30] So, when the ad came, like whenever such controversial ad comes, there are opinions flowing from both ends.

[00:18:38] Whether it is a good ad, bad ad.

[00:18:39] But what was different in this case is on June 4th, Twitter banned Amul's account.

[00:18:48] It was suspended, so to say.

[00:18:51] And what is different to note is the voices which talked about the campaign were much lesser.

[00:18:58] The voices that came in support of the brand Amul were much higher.

[00:19:04] And they questioned in Twitter instead that, you know, why have you blocked this account?

[00:19:11] And it represents the voice of people.

[00:19:15] Instead of questioning the brand that why are you bringing geopolitical issues in a loved brand category.

[00:19:23] So, and the next day, Twitter restored the brand.

[00:19:27] Now, one doesn't know whether the suspension had happened because of the ad or not.

[00:19:33] There is no written messaging around it.

[00:19:36] But yes, the timing is very, very suggestive of the same.

[00:19:42] But the lesson learned is that, like we were talking about the previous case,

[00:19:47] that one thinks that any publicity is a good publicity and hence,

[00:19:51] people don't even bother about the quality of publicity.

[00:19:54] Here, I would say the lesson learned is make your brand so very strong that people around,

[00:20:03] your stakeholders fight for your brand.

[00:20:05] And, you know, that's the winner.

[00:20:08] And I think that's the biggest lesson of how campaigns can actually contribute to reputation building.

[00:20:16] I would say Amul is the best example around that.

[00:20:19] So, after this entire controversy happened, the ad came out, there was a public opinion about it,

[00:20:25] followed by their Twitter account getting suspended.

[00:20:27] And I believe that the company came out with a statement on this.

[00:20:30] What did they say?

[00:20:31] So, the statement that the chairperson came out with very clearly mentioned that

[00:20:38] Amul Topicals focus on whatever is the trending topic.

[00:20:42] It is neither, it never favors a particular nation,

[00:20:45] nor does it oppose a particular nation, none of it.

[00:20:48] It represents the mood of people in India.

[00:20:51] And they simply, so they were not really apologetic about it,

[00:20:56] because they were very clear what they were doing.

[00:20:58] And Amul Topicals very clearly are aimed at building franchise of the brand Amul.

[00:21:07] They are not intended, they don't have any commercial objectives.

[00:21:12] They are not intended to drive sales.

[00:21:14] Of course, sales happen because the brand name becomes so popular.

[00:21:18] You kind of become very familiar with the brand.

[00:21:21] So, eventually, it definitely contributes to sale.

[00:21:24] Bitu, let's wrap up the episode with key learnings from all three.

[00:21:27] The thing that I'm wondering about is that all three are big,

[00:21:29] at least two of them are very big brands.

[00:21:31] I really don't know what's happened to the third one, Lair.

[00:21:33] But it's probably not the job of the CEO or the MD to come and give statements on ad campaigns.

[00:21:40] He or she has got like 10 other things to do.

[00:21:42] True.

[00:21:43] To get dragged into some kind of a controversy,

[00:21:47] something that's not part of your daily plan.

[00:21:49] It doesn't come in your meeting schedule, so to say.

[00:21:52] So, first is that, is the messaging and the company's image, do they tend to go off track?

[00:22:00] I mean, who thinks of these campaigns when they put it out?

[00:22:03] Let's start from there and then we'll go into the learnings.

[00:22:06] So, largely, of course, when these campaigns come out,

[00:22:09] it's the marketing team that would be largely driving it.

[00:22:14] Of course, there are contributions from the sales team,

[00:22:16] depending on the objective, of course.

[00:22:18] Of course, there are contributions from sales or possibly sometimes even from the HR.

[00:22:23] But ads are expensive.

[00:22:26] Highly unlikely that it will get released without CEO's approval in it.

[00:22:32] So, most often than not, they do see it.

[00:22:35] They do review it and give a green signal before it goes out.

[00:22:40] So, definitely, they have to make sense.

[00:22:46] They have to align with the overall brand strategy.

[00:22:49] And the marketing team has to be very, very sensitive with their research.

[00:22:54] And then come up with whatever messaging they want to convey,

[00:22:59] whatever platforms they want to choose,

[00:23:01] and the timing of the release of ad.

[00:23:04] All that is very well researched.

[00:23:06] Cros of rupees are invested in it, right?

[00:23:09] So, a lot of research goes behind it.

[00:23:13] So, of course, CEO sees it or the management team sees it.

[00:23:18] And if there is a backlash, unfortunately, but a CEO only comes out and communicates around it.

[00:23:25] However, one important point for us to note here is, Anupam,

[00:23:29] that one needs to be mindful when the CEO should talk or somebody else should talk.

[00:23:35] Again, I have iterated it many times earlier also,

[00:23:38] that for all controversy, you don't need your CEO or a chairman to come in.

[00:23:43] You can simply have the statement like even Zara did.

[00:23:48] So, the statement comes from the company very clearly,

[00:23:51] but you don't have to drag the CEO in all the conversations.

[00:23:54] We have to be very mindful about it.

[00:23:56] Okay.

[00:23:57] Now, with that out of the way, let's go into the learnings or, you know,

[00:24:00] Mithu's manual of doing this.

[00:24:02] So, three important things again that I would like to highlight.

[00:24:08] Number one, most often than not,

[00:24:10] these campaigns are created keeping very short-term objectives in mind,

[00:24:14] like we spoke in the beginning.

[00:24:16] It could be a sales objective.

[00:24:18] It could be an objective around driving employment,

[00:24:21] like getting more good quality people into your organization, stuff like that.

[00:24:25] So, the objectives are very defined and hence have very short-term layer to it.

[00:24:33] But, despite it being short-term,

[00:24:35] important that people remember the race framework.

[00:24:39] They have to research the environment around it.

[00:24:43] They have to act on it accordingly.

[00:24:45] Communication has to be well thought through.

[00:24:47] So, all that has to be done in a very, very, you know,

[00:24:52] clear manner, thought through manner.

[00:24:54] And engagement after that, whether positive or negative,

[00:24:58] has to be done in a very structured format.

[00:25:01] So, whether it is a short-term objective or a long-term objective,

[00:25:06] you can't forget the race framework.

[00:25:09] The second important learning is,

[00:25:13] thinking that any publicity is good publicity is a bad thinking.

[00:25:17] You have to be very, very aware of the quality of publicity.

[00:25:22] People don't forget.

[00:25:24] And unfortunately or fortunately,

[00:25:25] internet does not let you forget.

[00:25:27] So, you know,

[00:25:29] you think that you will just create like a flash in the pan.

[00:25:32] People will talk about you.

[00:25:34] And then eventually they'll forget.

[00:25:35] But it doesn't happen.

[00:25:37] It haunts you later.

[00:25:38] So, as a brand reputation,

[00:25:40] if that is your objective,

[00:25:42] strongly recommend against,

[00:25:44] you know,

[00:25:45] an approach of any publicity is a good publicity approach.

[00:25:49] And lastly,

[00:25:51] don't look at advertisement campaigns

[00:25:53] only with the short-term objective of driving sales

[00:25:56] or, you know,

[00:25:58] giving away a certain message.

[00:26:00] Look at it from a long-term perspective

[00:26:02] of developing your brand franchise,

[00:26:04] which is where Amul Topicals come in.

[00:26:07] And I think that's one,

[00:26:08] I don't even have to explain it

[00:26:10] when I say Amul Topicals

[00:26:11] and the way they have gone about it.

[00:26:13] So, look at developing your brand franchise

[00:26:15] with a long-term perspective

[00:26:17] and then invest accordingly.

[00:26:20] That's a nice wrap up, Meethu,

[00:26:22] because you said the race framework,

[00:26:23] which is research, act, communicate, engage.

[00:26:26] Any publicity is good publicity?

[00:26:28] No.

[00:26:29] Any publicity is good publicity

[00:26:30] and absolute and total no.

[00:26:32] Publicity is publicity

[00:26:34] and goes to your reputation.

[00:26:36] And the third,

[00:26:36] the long-term will always matter

[00:26:38] more than the short-term.

[00:26:39] Yes.

[00:26:40] Folks, that is it.

[00:26:40] That is a wrap on this episode

[00:26:42] of Reputation Matters.

[00:26:43] My guest, Meethu Samar,

[00:26:45] founder of Eminent Strategy.

[00:26:46] Meethu, thank you so much

[00:26:46] for doing this for our audience.

[00:26:48] Pleasure.