Critique of Controversial Advertisements: Marketing Strategies Report

This report critically analyzes controversial advertisements, focusing on Dove Body Wash and SISLEY Fashion Junkie, examining the controversies they sparked regarding racism and the promotion of addiction. The report then explores stealth marketing, using the Sony Ericson campaign as an example, and discusses the role of data analytics in modern marketing agencies, including how data is used and its impact on campaign effectiveness. It further examines award-winning campaigns, such as IKEA's Valentine's Day promotion, and analyzes different advertisement categories like social media ads (BarkBox), B2B, not-for-profit, and global ads. The report concludes with a discussion of good versus bad advertising practices and suggests a revamp plan for improving advertising portrayals, offering insights into the complexities of advertising and its impact on consumers.

Running head: CONTROVERSIAL ADVERTISEMENTS
Critically Commenting on the Controversial Advertisements
Name of the Students
Student ID:
Name of University
Author Note

2CONTROVERSIAL ADVERTISEMENT
Table of Contents
1a. Controversial Advertisement:................................................................................................5
Dove Body Wash.........................................................................................................................5
Trade Press Article followed:......................................................................................................7
SISLEY Junkies...........................................................................................................................7
Trade Press Article:.................................................................................................................9
1 b: Identification of Controversial Matter Raised by Stealth Marketing:..................................9
Stage 2: Data Analytics.............................................................................................................10
What role does data play in a modern agency?.........................................................................10
How is data used in a modern agency?......................................................................................11
Stage 3: Award Winning...........................................................................................................11
Stage 4: Advertisement Category:.............................................................................................12
1. Social media ad...................................................................................................................12
Journal Reading:........................................................................................................................15
2. B2B advertisement..............................................................................................................15
Journal Reading:....................................................................................................................16
3. Not- for- Profit:...................................................................................................................16
Reading on the Journal:.............................................................................................................18
4. Global:...................................................................................................................................18
Journal Reading:........................................................................................................................19

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Stage 5: Good versus Bad..........................................................................................................20
Stage 6:......................................................................................................................................22
Rationale:...............................................................................................................................22
Message Section:...................................................................................................................22
Editing:..................................................................................................................................22
Reference:......................................................................................................................................24
Appendices:...................................................................................................................................27
Appendix 1:...................................................................................................................................27
Dove Body Wash- Allegedly Racist..............................................................................................27
Appendix 2:...................................................................................................................................28
SISLEY Fashion Junkie: Allegedly Promoting Addiction............................................................28
Appendix 3:...................................................................................................................................29
Social Media Ad- BarkBox...........................................................................................................29
Appendix 4:...................................................................................................................................29
Ad Category: NGO........................................................................................................................29
Appendix 5:...................................................................................................................................30
Good ad- McDonald’s by Sean Click............................................................................................30
Appendix 6:...................................................................................................................................31
Bad Ads- Bay Watch.....................................................................................................................31
Appendix 7:...................................................................................................................................32

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Change in Ad- New Creation........................................................................................................32

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The following paper is structured on the basis of the mode and implementation of advertising
thought process. There are different stages in the paper that begin with the identification of two
controversial advertisements followed by the significance of data analytics. Different types of
advertisements have been taken into consideration-
i) Award Winning
ii) Social Media Ads
iii) B2B ads
iv) NGO ads
v) Global Ads
The paper ends with the recommendation of a revamp plan from bad to good advertising
portrayal.
1a. Controversial Advertisement:
Dove Body Wash
Advertisements on beauty products have always been considered as racist ones. Turning
from black to white has been of real importance for the beauty products that targeted customers
with not so fair skin. This advertisement of Dove has raised many controversies regarding the
definition of beauty. The intention of the advertisement was to illustrate the beneficial
characteristic traits of Dove Visible Care Body Wash my making the human skin, specifically
the women skin look more beautiful and fair within a week (Hund and Pickering 2013). The
demonstration of three women wearing towel raised controversy as it shows the transformation
from black to light. The targeted audiences in this advertisement were undoubtedly the women

6CONTROVERSIAL ADVERTISEMENT
with darker skin, who suffer from self contempt regarding their skin color. The tagline used in
the advertisement, visibly more beautiful skin from the most unexpected of places – your shower
has not only claimed to be a revolutionary product that would actually change the color of a
human skin. In the advertisement white was equal to beautiful. Following the advertisement the
beauty campaign organized by Dove also demonstrated that beauty meant to be naturally fit,
without being curvy or being Athletic.

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In fact the psychological understanding of the advertiser regarding human want was highly
supported by rising tendency of human being regarding the definition of beauty. Avoiding the
aging process was one of the most significant targeted areas that the advertiser talked about in
the advertisement. In the campaign the company illustrated the fact that it believed in the
definition of beauty that would come through color, size, shape and age of a woman
(Ramamurthy and Wilson 2013). The advertiser claimed that the company was highly committed
in featuring the realistic images thus raising questions on what real beauty words. The portrayal
of color discrimination has so for been quite important in terms of creating an unfair lineage to
the conception of beauty.
The advertisement focused on the psychographic and behavioral segmentation of the
consumers.
Trade Press Article followed:
The entire controversy was discussed in the article of Daily Mail journal (Mail Online
2017).
SISLEY Junkies
The next advertisement that has raised adequate controversy in the fashion world has
been SISLEY fashion junkie. The advertisement clearly demonstrates two young ladies who
represent the fashion trend in an addictive manner. Depiction of drug addiction was one of the
most significant instruments that were devised through this advertisement. This has not only
demonstrated youth tendency towards addiction, but has also aggravated the deeds of such. In
fact, this has raised questions whether the advertisement brought the consumers’ attention into

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effect so that they could move on to purchasing the products offered by the brand (Percy 2014).
The models shown in the advertisement poster demonstrated with addicted Eyes where highly
vulnerable. The created controversy was deliberate. The basic controversial element in the
advertisement was the white powder kept beside the junkies, with the girls inhaling it. The
targeted audience in this advertisement was undoubtedly the young girls who could not resist
themselves from wearing the junkies offered by SISLEY. This is how; in most of the cases it
reached to the certain amount of customers from USA and Europe and other countries where
these junkies replaced the intoxicating drugs. The intention of this advertisement was to, perhaps
bring the youth out of they are addicted self (Chan and Yeung 2016).

9CONTROVERSIAL ADVERTISEMENT
Trade Press Article:
The discussion was based on an article published in New York Daily (NY Daily News 2017).
1 b: Identification of Controversial Matter Raised by Stealth Marketing:
One of the most paradigmatic stealth marketing examples has been the marketing
campaign driven by Sony Ericson. Using 60 actors to become a part of the audience and make
them understand the features offered by the company has been quite important a strategy that
was used by Sony. The stealth marketing is often called buzz marketing. In fact, this has
become a sensation in the live marketing scenario among the people. This has entailed in certain
marketing rise of the product.

10CONTROVERSIAL ADVERTISEMENT
The Wall Street Journal has covered the entire story of such epoch-making practice in
the advertising genre. Since this has been quite an innovative endeavor from Sony pertaining to
its marketing initiative, the process came into existence through the intervention of the
customers. The marketing campaign of Sony Ericson was highly acknowledged by most of the
consumers. Stealth marketing, according to Roy and Chattopadhyay (2010), is based on certain
typology of creating demand among the consumers. It creates a buzz among the audiences who
are observed roaming in the market without knowing the actual feature of the products. Sony has
strategically invented the process of reaching to the greater number of the audience through the
brand ambassadors. The marketing campaign was spread through the buzz from the customers
and the sales of the product hiked only through the buzz of the users. The controversial matter
was that the actors started flirting with the common people (WSJournal 2017). The following
link directs to the journal article associated with stealth marketing:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1028069195715597440
Stage 2: Data Analytics
What role does data play in a modern agency?
The approach that is initially taken up by the agencies is that it helps the marketers in
relying on the agencies, which will help in building the personas of the audience in an effective
manner. It helps in mapping the attributes that are available so that the taxonomy of the
marketers can be segmented in to various channels, which can be addressed easily. The
marketers need to take in to consideration the ideas from the past campaigns so that the new
campaign can be based on the ideas that were generated by the agencies previously (Moriarty et
al. 2014).

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How is data used in a modern agency?
The marketer needs to understand that the key to succeed is to focus the advertisement
towards the customers. The videos or the advertisements that are being made needs to understand
the behavior of the customers so that the consumers may favor that particular brand or product.
The campaigns will be effective in nature if the platform on which is built will give priority to
the customers (Danesi 2014).
The challenges that the marketers face is that they cannot recognize the particular
attributes that will help the advertisement in gaining importance. The use of skills with respect to
analytics will help the marketers in gaining a better knowledge about the customers and the
matters that are important to them.
An example of a great campaign was ‘Nike: Find Your Greatness’, which was released
during the Olympic Games held in London in 2012 (Struijs, Braaksma and Daas 2014). The
campaign was a great success because it has used the data that the athletes will be able to
perform better if they pushed their limits during their performance. The company was of the
vision that it will target the audience who achieves better by performing better than their
previous stints (Couldry and Turow 2014).
Stage 3: Award Winning
The campaign by IKEA during the Valentine’s Day ensured that the couples whose
babies were born exactly after 9 months would be entitled to win a free cot for their baby was an
award winning campaign. It was successful in the market because the company has customers
that have the purchasing power from their stores. The segmentation of the customers was done in

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an appropriate manner, which helped the company in achieving better results (Palermo, Bleck
and Peterman 2017).
It also helped in influencing the groups, as most of the couples were trying to get access
to the free cot services provided by the company. The group that was targeted by the company
was the family members and the relatives so that it would create an impact on them regarding the
ad campaign. The ad also tried to influence the personal preferences of the consumers with
respect to personal and child health care, which became a dominant factor in influencing the
consumers. The company took in to consideration the spending capacity of the consumers, which
helped in influencing their ad campaign (Pehlivan et al. 2015). The effect was positive on the
economic perspective for the consumers, as most of the consumers were trying to get the benefit
that was provided to them by the company. The advertising helped in creating an impact on the
consumers with respect to their purchasing decisions, as it provided better offers to the couples.
This helped in the elimination of the rival companies who were also in the same line of
production (Percy 2014).
The key element that helped the campaign to be successful was that it had targeted the
young couples that had no knowledge about parental issues. The advertisement helped the
couples in gaining a better knowledge about the parental issues.
Stage 4: Advertisement Category:
1. Social media ad
The BarkBox advertisement was created on the social media platform in 2016 and was
released for the viewers in YouTube and Instagram. The main aim of the advertisement was to
create an environment that will help in influencing the efforts in the market (Percy 2014). The