Ads that crossed the line

The print ad featuring actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan being waited upon by a child slave is not the only piece of work that courted controversy recently

Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's brush with controversy recently for an ad she shot for Kalyan Jewellers is not the only instance of brands courting controversy. Examples are galore of how advertisers and their agencies in their quest to be different have gone overboard with their advertising.

Consider this: On Saturday, when Nepal was rocked by a devastating earthquake, online eyewear site Lenskart used the calamity to promote an offer on Facebook asking users to "Shake it off like this Earthquake". Predictably, there was a furore on social media over the promotion, prompting the e-tailer to come out with an immediate apology.

Consider another one: The soup that Ford Figo and its agency landed themselves into when they released a controversial poster campaign two years ago. Uploaded on the web, it attracted worldwide criticism for projecting popular figures Paris Hilton, Silvio Berlusconi and the Kardashian sisters in poor light. The campaign, more importantly, put the spotlight firmly on the phenomenon of scamming (where ads are created purely to win awards) in Indian advertising, cost JWT India's chief creative officer Bobby Pawar his job (JWT's specialist unit Blue Hive had created the ads) and saw some heads roll at Ford India too.

Of course, there was the unpopular Kurl-On ads last year that were in the same vein as Ford Figo. An illustration of Pakistani activist and Nobel laureate Malala Yousufzai was shown bouncing back to life after being shot in the head in one such ad in the series. One more showed the late Steve Jobs bouncing back after being shown the door (an allusion to his ouster at Apple before coming back to take it to glory). The third ad in the series showed Mahatma Gandhi as a young lawyer thrown out of the train only to return as the Father of the Nation.

O&M, the creator of the above campaign, first apologised for the series, then changed its stand, when executive chairman Piyush Pandey said that it was a campaign for which his agency had received a legitimate go-ahead from the advertiser.

One more example of a controversial ad roundly criticised for its content was the one for Titan's Fastrack brand featuring a female model wrapped in a ribbon titled Sale. Released both in print and outdoor early last year, Titan had to quickly issue an apology when protests grew both online and offline for objectifying women.

Globally, there have been some glaring examples of brands crossing the line - Italian apparel maker Benetton three years ago came up with its 'Unhate' campaign featuring among others former pope Benedict XVI kissing the Imam of the Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo. US President Barack Obama was seen kissing the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and so was former French President Nicholas Sarkozy kissing German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The question is why do brands leap into controversy when it could invite nothing but trouble? KV Sridhar, chief creative officer, SapientNitro, says, "Sometimes it could be the DNA of a brand like it is in the case of Benetton or even Fastrack, which has addressed issues such as homosexuality in previous campaigns (Fastrack's Coming out of the Closet series two years ago). A brand's DNA could goad it to pick up subjects others wouldn't dare touch. Sometimes, it is also the category that could give you the creative licence to explore themes and subjects you would otherwise be wary about. In the Kalyan case, the above doesn't apply. I think, it was plain oversight and ignorance that did them in. Something that was acceptable centuries ago will not be appreciated now. Child labour and discrimination based on skin colour are two such issues, which the ad projects. They should have known that."

In some cases, brands have gone beyond issuing mere apologies and rallied around a cause when their communication has come under attack. Like what American retailer Gap did two years ago when one of its ads featuring a Sikh model was defaced in a subway. To show solidarity with the model and the cause of fighting racism, Gap changed its display image on its twitter handle to feature the same ad that was defaced by vandals. Gap was lauded for its effort both in mainline and social media.

"In many respects, social media has become a watchdog of sorts," says Manish Bhatt, founder-director, Scarecrow Communications. "This means both advertisers and agencies have to be cautious with their advertising. Even if you choose to walk the tightrope between what is acceptable and what is not with your communication, you need to do it tastefully and with clear understanding and purpose of what you wish to communicate," he says.