Last week in Britain the Outdoor Advertising Association (OAA) ran an outdoor advertising campaign designed by Britain’s Beta Agency. Emblazoned on the side of a bus: “Career women make bad mothers”
Hook... Er.
The advertising was part of the “Britainthinks” campaign. The supposed point of this particular campaign was to stimulate discussion among Brits in an online forum.
The problem is that stimulating discussion (or any response) with a mock offensive statement like "career women are bad mothers" is only part of a shock advertising campaign – it’s the “hook”, it captures your attention. The key component of the campaign is then the following “call to action” that you deliver after you’ve captured your audience’s attention.
Well, there was action - but not what they intended.
The concept of using offensive content - shock advertising - is not exactly new, and many industry professionals do not consider it effective enough to risk the down side:
“…sometimes an advertising agency goes too far – and risks damaging the reputation of the very brand it seeks to enrich. The agency succeeds in attracting attention, but undermines the very products it is trying to promote.”
“People are so sophisticated and they see through what an advertiser is trying to do – and they don't like being manipulated."
Call Me
It is surprising that this campaign did not have clear a call to action - there was a weak starburst with the phrase "Have your say" off to the side, like an afterthought.
That's a pretty odd choice from a company that makes advertising for a living. They supposedly know this stuff – they aren’t new to the industry or the concept of shock advertising. This wasn’t a simple typo or an inference they somehow missed.
But they didn't.
The result is that the Beta agency and the OAA left themselves and their “Britainthinks!” client looking like stodgy old jerks against equal rights for women. Not exactly a positive result for anyone except maybe the smoking jacket crowd (and probably not them, either).
Beta and the OAA have unfortunately also aligned themselves with the very vocal minority who will view this as yet another opportunity to dog pile on working moms as the root of all the evils of society (I’m looking at you, Ann Coulter). After all, an advertising agency said that "career women make bad mothers" – and if a big, strong, smart advertising agency said it – why then, it must be true.
The Importance of Being Inquisitive
There was an understandable outcry against this campaign from moms and also those who somehow manage to believe that women are perfectly capable of working and parenting. The outcry was immediate, passionate and massive.
The OAA responded to the outcry in one of the communities that was very active and filled with discussion about their campaign (Mumsnet):
We regret any misunderstanding that led to feelings of offence on the part of members of the Mumsnet community.
The intention of the website is to generate debate by posing questions that are deemed to be socially relevant by members of society.
We did not intend to cause any offence and we would stress that the questions posed were not the opinions of the OAA or any of its members.
Regrettably the question relating to “career women” has caused offence and the OAA unreservedly apologises to anyone who has been offended. This was not our intention and, to ensure that this misunderstanding does not persist, instructions have been given to remove this poster.
Okay, they're sorry and they'll make it better by removing it. Good.
Oh. But wait - the statement is still an integral part of the “Britain Thinks” campaign site... and the bulletin boards are still up in a number of places (read the Mumsnet replies, they're filled with reports of posters up all over).
Did they forget?
Bill Wilson, operations director of OAA also responded:
“The point was that it was meant to be a question rather than a statement. The whole purpose of the thing was to encourage debate. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If we could do it again we would have made it more deliberately a question.”
More deliberately a question? Did we miss something?
Both quotes above stress how this advertisement was a question.
How, exactly, was it a question in any way?
“Career women make bad mothers” is not a question.
Gosh, it must be that the Beta Agency and the OAA is so woefully misunderstood by their audience. It certainly couldn’t be that they failed to communicate well and screwed up and should admit it, should they?
Frying Pan and Fire
Instead of putting on some big girl pants and taking some well-deserved lumps by responding to negative feedback with a global mea culpa Garry Lace from Beta then posted on their company blog a threat to sue the most popular online community that was filled with responses from mothers;
“At first we were not sure what to do. It had not been our intention to cause such offence, nor to attract such abuse. Our intention was to provoke discussion. We believed that both the poster and the content of the Britainthinks website reflected this. We accept we got this wrong.”
He denied that he was about to commence legal proceedings against Mumsnet despite admitting that he sent an e-mail to Justine Roberts, the website’s managing director, in which he threatened to “engage in a process to ensure ... that we are compensated for the hurt, corporate loss and reputational damage that we have suffered”.
Mr Lace said that he had relaxed his position since Mumsnet removed some of the more personal messages, but said: “If my people continue to be called f***ing tossers then I will take a point of view about it.”
Lovely. The message Gary is sending is that the public is not allowed to insult his “misunderstood” staff - but it is perfectly acceptable to insult working moms - because they were just asking a non-question to provoke discussion.
Really.
I wonder - would it be acceptable if we asked if his “people” are f***ing tossers?
Just trying to provoke a discussion.
End with Irony
After all the drama, Beta then offered up an alternative advertisment:
This "alternative" also begs the question; would that “all” that are "damaged" by sexism be:
the audience - who you also threatened with legal action for objecting to your rampant sexism?
or
the members of the Beta agency who got a whole lot of negative feedback - and many would argue deservedly so?
They make it far too easy.
Britainthinks? Really?
Not this time.
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Update: Transport Media has canceled their contract with the OAA:
“How this detrimental campaign could be given the green light in this day and age is utterly absurd. The decision made by the OAA to run with this campaign has caused so much offence to the men and women of Transport Media that after the many heated staff discussions the MD has made a clear firm stand and decided to pull away from the OAA and its logo. The campaign is not only irresponsible but can only be seen to have a negative impact on the world of outdoor advertising.”
Ouch.
I think it's pretty clear, this particular advertising campaign should have been left in Beta.
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