It always amazes me how certain people are capable of finding new lows, even when no one else has imagined it in their wildest of dreams. That statement should summarize the words I intend to lay upon you today, but instead placing at the very end of my thoughts, as I derive my conclusions from analysis as I am use to, I chose to begin with it. Excuse me if my words seems too harsh, but I am infuriated, and trust me, the words I wrote are not as harmful or as nasty as I would like them to be. Bottom-feeders are a fact of life, I know that, but to allow that mentality to spread, to let it be known openly that it is acceptable behavior, is something I would not stand for, and will always fight. Now if such a message is embedded into a product TV Ad, the repercussions are simply catastrophic.
Generally speaking, a good product Ad has two functions, the first being to introduce the product to the target demographic, the second being to establish the quality(ies) which are of value to the target demographic, and hence the intended individuals will buy it. Mind you, I'm not saying that all of them do exactly those two functions, but however, it's more or less revolving around these two; but however, most of the advertiser choose to try and fool consumers into buying the products they advertise about, and using their ignorance against them, I remember from my younger years the famous “#1” trick, although it could have been a good trick, but however, suddenly all of the products became #1, which in consequence led to the loss of credibility in the idea of “#1”. I even remember other tricks such as promoting a normal step in the process of manufacturing as a quality of a product, a famous example would be the “Lucky Strike” campaign “it's toasted”, all tobacco must be toasted before cut and rolled into cigarettes, it's a STANDARD part of the process.
In recent years, advertisers found themselves in a pickle, they are asked to promote products that are the same as their peers, products that have no qualities that set them apart from others in the same categories, none-the-less, they have to draw attention to the products they promote, make their image stick to the consumer mind, and thus Ad models came to life!!! Instead of promoting by quality, it is done via exploitation, by placing a very attractive, sexy, and desirable model into the frame with the product, that is how the attention of the consumer is drawn among other things that I don't wish to get into. Now do not get me wrong, its at least a way of drawing attention setting aside the side effects, and come to think of it, the “pretty” people needs jobs too!!!
However, some advertisers decided to go another direction, which is acting a somewhat of an unusual sketch or scene, where the product come in as an answer. Fair enough, but along came the strays that made more decadent, preying on the sense humors or even sexual needs of the recipients; a famous example of that kind of choice will be the “Axe” “Wash Your Balls” Ad –I kid you not– and to be fair, it's a good Ad, although it stretches out the limit on the “sense of humor”. Anyhow, I get the point with all above types, most of the time you need to resort to “unusual” ways to attract an audience, but what really pissed me off, is something very different and has a new kind of low.
In the last few weeks, Fanta Egypt decided to run an Ad about their new product the Fanta Cantaloupe, or in short the “Fantaloupe”, allow me to describe the Ad so you would get what pissed me off about it, you can skip the next few lines if you have already seen it. The Ad is scene about a meeting to convince a board of executives of the new product in question, an executive complains about the worker –who's name is Mesilehi– and that he chose the Cantaloupe as a new flavor, however, he gets convinced by a “suck up” –sorry, I could not get a better identification term for him– that it's a good choice, and then to taste it for himself, the executive then asks about the number of bottles produced for this product, the “suck up” answers three hundred thousand –is that sort of expected sales for this flavor– , another executive asks what is solution if they were not to sell, the “suck up” then devise the perfect plan to make the worker buy them and fire him, end scene, screen reads “Save Mesilehi … Drink Fantaloupe”.
Now, I am going to flip the coin both sides to clarify the thoughts I had about this “Ad”. Let us assume that consumers realize that this is merely an act to sell the product, and that the people who appear or mentioned in this Ad are merely a figment of imagination of a really sick mind –I had another word in mind but I decided to use this one instead–, doesn't this makes Coca Cola –owner of the Fanta products– seem like begging the public for money? Doesn't this shows how this company treat their employees if one of their investments was placed in a product that an employee developed? Isn't that a PR nightmare? And above all, what was going through the advertiser who came up with this idea, what made him think of such a situation, unless he has seen one before?
Now, let us assume –I know this idiotic but let us go through it anyway– that consumers realize that the people who appeared and mentioned in that Ad are real –didn't I say it is idiotic– !!! Will they sympathize with Mesilehi? Will they buy the product out of mere sympathy that would only last until the 300000 bottles run out? Or will it backfire and produces a massive boycott –I'm assuming an activist and naïve type of consumer here – that could bankrupt Coca Cola Egypt and Mesilehi is better off in a company that appreciate his inventions? And again I would ask about the bad public image and the PR nightmare, and again I would ask what was going through the advertiser mind?
On a more serious note, oh yes I was making fun of the person who came with this idea, how did these questions slip through the decision makers involved in that “Ad”, how many absent-minded persons did this skip? Or maybe they were not absent-minded and understand completely what they are doing, using ignorance of the consumers against them? The answer in both cases are terrifying and offensive in nature. This “Ad” can only work in one situation, if the people are indifferent about the whole thing and consider it as a joke –as in Mesilehi will get fired, hahaha, kind of joke–, in other words, the consumers have to be careless, very selfish and self-centered; hmmm, that might explain why they used Mesilehi as name –a common farmer name– instead of Sayed –a common worker name– , doesn't it ? –who would think that there something called name profiling ? And even this they can't get it right–However, I assume then that I get the type of implicit message for “the target consumers” –and what kind they are– .
At the end, I like to add that this is a full fledged campaign, with it's youtube video, Facebook group, and twitter account; you can check them all from the official site of Fanta, http://fantaegypt.com/, I kid you not. Please do not get me wrong, I do not mean to attack Coca Cola in itself, I'm attacking the individuals who were responsible of offending me by such a message, and in my own humble opinion should be fired –maybe then I could laugh about the matter, poetic justice and whatnot–; it is because of these individuals that I will never ever try that product of theirs, and please bare in mind that I would not be alone who takes this action, but I can only speak for myself.
