Recently an advert for Belle D’Opium, a new fragrance from Yves St Laurent was banned for “simulating drug use”. Obviously I went straight off to watch the offending advert, and I can confirm that yes, when the French actress in the advert runs a finger down her arm it does indeed look as though she might be injecting herself. From here the actress writhes around out of control before eventually crashing to the floor, further fueling the drug simulation. I decided to go off in search for further banned adverts to see what I could find. There are a lot. I think that highly controversial adverts can work well, but the trick is to just walk a fine line not go galloping over the line to the point where the advert is banned.

Here is a great one from 7up, although sadly the advertising authority did not agree. I like this one because you just don’t know what to expect! Check it out and see for yourself…

http://vodpod.com/watch/41280-7up-banned-advert?u=toptentubes&c=toptenbannedadverts

This Eva Mendes advert for Calvin Klein fragrance “Secret Obsession” was deemed far to raunchy for US audiences. A watered down version is to be aired in the US while European audiences are the only ones to be treated to the full unsanitised version.

http://www.bestrejectedadvertising.com/html/?page=tv&type=rejected&id=247

How about this advert from Snickers which received thousands of complaints for being offensive to gay people. The advert was for UK audiences but it was from the US that the complaints came. Despite receiving just 2 complaints in the UK, Mars decided to pull the advert anyway due to the alarm it caused across the pond. Incidentally it was the same agency (AMV BBDO) who created this advert and the following Heinz – Deli Mayo advert which was also deemed offensive because it shows two men kissing.

http://www.bestrejectedadvertising.com/html/?page=tv&type=rejected&id=246

And here is the ad in question. There is surely more than a hint of irony that both adverts are deemed offensive? What do you think?

http://www.bestrejectedadvertising.com/html/?page=tv&type=rejected&id=245

Finally the following advert for Skoda Octavia was banned. Featuring a woman jumping off a bridge onto a speeding train and then smashing through a train carriage window caused offense because apparently a. it could encourage vandalism to trains or railway property, b. it could encourage children to replicate the move, c. it is reminiscent of a suicide and d. it is reminiscent of train crashes when windows have to be smashed to rescue people.

http://www.bestrejectedadvertising.com/html/?page=tv&type=most&id=103

Tell us what you think.  Are the advertising standards authority right to ban these adverts?

Companies all over the world are turning to online advertising as a way to reach more customers and increase sales. Although traditional marketing measures such as television, magazine and radio adverts continue to be used, more and more we are seeing examples of how online advertising works just as well, if not better. Just recently Cadbury’s have carried out an online marketing campaign in conjunction with other traditional marketing and the results have been phenomenal. It seems that for every £1 spent, £2 of short term revenue was generated. You don’t need to be a financial or business expert to realise those results are worth having!

A panel involved in measuring the sales data of the Cadbury’s case study have also concluded that although the television advertising was seen by a larger number of people than the online adverts, it only generated £0.60 worth of sales for every £1 spent. The whole Cadbury’s campaign was designed so that the television adverts and online ads would compliment each other nicely, and they certainly did. Whilst the television ads were aimed at older consumers, online the target audience were much younger and were reached through facebook ads, promoted youtube videos and a Google adwords campaign.

Companies and businesses who are yet to embrace the digital age are truly missing out it would seem. Case studies such as the one described here continue to show findings that digital advertising channels when used alongside television and print media marketing can truly optimise the effectiveness of any campaign. In other words, television is just so 90’s and anyone who truly wants to succeed should get with the digital programme.

Do you think that digital advertising is the future? If you have a business tell us what marketing efforts you have found to be most effective.

I laughed out loud when I saw the new Mercedes CLS advert! You should check it out on utube and see what I mean. I cannot fathom why an advertising agency would represent a luxury car as nothing more than a symbol of soulless consumerism. There is no denying the car doesn’t look good, but who would want to be associated with this kind of message? This advert led to dig around for other advertising campaigns that can also be filed under the heading “what were they thinking?” Here are a few I came up with…

Funny Translations

One major pitfall for advertisers is slogans that don’t translate well into other languages. I love the Coors slogan “Turn it loose” which in Spanish was translated into “suffer from diarrhea”. Another favourite is Pepsi’s slogan “come alive with the pepsi generation” which in Chinese was translated as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.” Last but by no means least, the slogan used by Frank Perdue’s chicken “it takes a strong man to make a tender chicken” came out in Spanish as “it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate.” The moral of the story, always test your slogans with the natives! If anyone bursts out laughing you know you need to rethink.

Bad Taste

All eyes on Ryanair who thought is was appropriate to release an advert with the slogans “London fights back” and “let’s keep london flying” just 8 days are the London terror attacks in 2005. The team behind CSI:NY also had a lot to answer for after they carried out a mail shot that suggested a serial killer had murdered victims with names that matched those of the recipients. I also love the mail shot approach used by the financial company Damart that sent letters suggesting the recipients were in debt and being issued with their final reminder! Why anyone would think these adverts were a good idea is absolutely beyond me.

General Misfortune

As soon as I began writing this post I remembered a very funny and unfortunate advert I saw a few years back for the Hampshire police. The series that was run was of real members of the police service with the slogan “who’s making your neightbourhood safer?” The pictures were displayed on the rear end of buses around the local area. All sounds well and good, however the position of the exhaust pipe was not taken into consideration. Most of the adverts were fine, but there was just one very unfortunate positioning that I’m sure left the policeman in question very red faced! Unfortunate indeed!

If any  of you can remember any other terrible / tasteless / unfunny or generally awful adverts then send them in for us to have a good laugh at.