Who is responsible when big brands fall behind? At the highest level there are thousands of factors that determine whether Microsoft and Apple or Toyota and Nissan will win the quarter and even the brightest analyst will admit that when it comes to pinpointing the cause of some big brand competitions we are left with pure speculation and baffling results. But regardless of the real cause there is always an easy scapegoat: advertising.
Advertising can often be like the kicker on an NFL team. Get the points at the right moment just once and it seems like you’ll be a hero forever. But fudge the wrong field goal and be prepared for your once adoring fans to be sending death threats. Advertiser CP&B is certainly feeling this heat right now with the controversy surrounding the television ads it made for Groupon’s SuperBowl campaign.
Groupon should have known what it was getting into when it signed up with CP&B an agency that takes pride in pushing the envelope of appropriateness with campaigns like “Whopper Virgins which brought Whoppers to rural villages around the world for an unbiased taste test.
The ads created for Groupon feature a celebrity plea, in an overly serious tone, for a worldwide cause like freeing Tibet, before flipping the ad on its head and talking about how much money you can save with Groupon. At its best, it is a clever self-deprecating commentary on the stupidity of the things we spend money on in the face of more important crises. At its worst, it is a blatant abuse of emotional world issues for the sake of commercial appeal.
Either way the ad is perceived, it was meant to raise eyebrows. Ad Age claims in the latest issue that the controversy surrounding CP&B’s more edgy ads is probably part of the strategy, and it certainly isn’t the first time that a notorious ad has ended up boosting a brand, despite negative reaction.
But the opposite can be true as well, as is evidenced by Pepsi’s groundbreaking campaign, Pepsi Refresh.” The project took the $20 million that Pepsi usually spends on its yearly anchor a huge SuperBowl ad and instead allowed communities to vote how to distribute the money into various charities causes and goodwill campaigns. The campaign was integrated across their print and television advertising and deep into social media like Facebook. The result was billions of eyeballs tuning in as the stories ricocheted through the mainstream news and sparked spin-off stories for each local project. The Pepsi Facebook page exploded generating millions of positive brand messages for Pepsi. Trade magazines and industry analysts claimed that this was a textbook marketing plan for social media that was sure to be mimicked for years.
The only problem is it didn’t really work. Communities were “refreshed” and hundreds of pro-social causes received funding but sales didn’t increase. In fact this year hot off the heels of the campaign brand Pepsi dropped below Diet Coke as the third most popular cola drink widening the huge gap between Pepsi and classic Coke in the No. 1 spot.
Can Pepsi place blame on the Refresh campaign and TBWAChiatDay the agency that created it or do they need to look inward? If marketing and advertising campaigns can’t be measured in increased sales what’s the point? The Refresh campaign benefited thousands of Americans involved with the various causes that received donations and many hoped that this would become a model for large corporations to begin committing more authentically to improve their communities. Labeling the campaign a failure could have large implications for what could potentially be an extremely positive movement in global advertising.
There are millions of reasons why these brands can lose their edge and somewhere out there might be a brilliant marketing plan that can bring the brands back from the brink. But along with a war between advertisements there is a war between products and advertising can’t always help a brand that is simply being bested by the competition’s actual product. Because no amount of clever helpful subliminal humorous emotional or mind-blowing campaigns can convince you to like a product you picked up tried and just didn’t like.