Recently, Indian ads has created controversy and spread like wildfire on social media. Dabur, FabIndia and CEAT are a few names that have captured prime times for discussion and debate in National television channels because of the controversies created by their recent advertisements.
As said, there is no such thing as negative publicity, all the mentioned companies have received mixed reactions from the public on their recent commercials.
Advertisement is a paid form of non-personal promotion to the target audience and is an essential tool to create brand awareness, promote any product/service/idea/message, persuade customers to buy and create brand loyalty. Using powerful media, ads manipulate messages and use puffery in a product claiming to impress consumers. Sometimes, companies might promote any message or change in product/ packaging and the public reacts negatively. When negative publicity is instigated by the company itself intentionally or unintentionally, it is known as self-inflicted negative publicity. This article is an attempt to critically investigate each of the advertisements and review to what extent the company could restore its image, reach target customers and identify the good, bad and the best part of each communication. The intention is not to discuss whether these campaigns are good or ethical but to analyze the benefit of creating controversies from a marketing point of view.
Creating Controversies
A few days back, ahead of Karwa Chauth 2021, Dabur’s Fem Gold bleach has rolled out an advertisement on social media platforms promoting same-sex relationships and has shown two ladies celebrating the festival. The company withdrew the ad after receiving a threat of legal action from the home minister of Madhya Pradesh and apologized unconditionally stating that it doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s sentiment. The good part of the ad is that the company has beautifully portrayed same-sex relationships, a social message intended to liberalize the acceptance of homosexuality and remove the taboo on LGBT relationships.
Whether it should be associated with Hindu festivals or not and or did it hurt the sentiment of the public is a debatable matter but numerous appreciations as well as backlashes are observed in social media on that post. The commercial might have been created with good intention, though the advertiser definitely had an idea that the message is sensitive in nature before rolling it among the public. The company withdrew the ad without any confrontation which has raised the question of the intention of the company. It is not clear whether the company is intended to send a good social message or to create some controversy. The best part of creating a controversial ad and posting on social media has multifold benefits- reach the target audience through the ad campaign, capture the attention of larger audiences, create an image of a progressive brand and finally reach the mass through the prime-time discussion in National Television channels and appear as headlines in newspapers. The last two are done at no extra cost, whereas booking a few minutes in Primetime slots actually cost some lakhs. Of course, this is undeniable that there are huge risks associated with controversial campaigns.
A recent row over “Jashn-e-Riwaaz”, a collection of apparel campaigned by famous clothing brand FabIndia in early October this year is another incident of creating controversy. The company was trolled in social media with mixed reactions from the public and grabbed the position of a top trending brand in social media. FabIndia pulled out the ad after getting strong opposition from the right-wing group. Though now the company claims that this ad campaign was not meant for Diwali and it has always respected the Indian tradition and the subsequent celebrations. In social media, the reaction of the right-wing leader received thousands of likes and dislikes. Some criticized the brand for defacing the Hindu religion whereas many Fab customers appreciated the brand for its creative inputs. Once again, the ad campaign was highly successful to reach the target customers, gained the support of many of them and finally created a high level of brand awareness.
Soon after the FabIndia row, CEAT Ltd was criticized by another right-wing leader and he has written a letter to the CEO of CEAT Ltd on its advertisement claiming that a non-Hindu celebrity is hurting Hindu sentiments. This message was also trolled heavily on social media.
In today’s interconnected world, customers are more powerful than ever to reach and connect with their preferred brands. All the above campaign messages whether intentionally or unintentionally crafted by the ad-makers received mixed reactions. But all of them could grab the attention of the target customers as well as of the common people. Though some polarization happened within the audience on these messages, at the same time they have received compliments and comments from some high-profile respectable citizens and domain experts. These opinion leaders acted as influencers and made people think about those brands. In the end, all these ad campaigns can create buzz and spark in the market.