Question

The authors distinguish between controllable and uncontrollable factors that influence the demand for a product. One of the controllable factors on their list is advertising, and ads are generally intended to shift the demand curve rightward. However, can you think of ad campaigns that backfired and hurt the demand for a product? What did the seller do to recover from this mistake?

Answer 1

McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish

Clearly, all methods are fair game when it comes to selling a fish sandwich, and McDonalds UK took a low swing while formulating marketing tactics for its Filet-O-Fish sandwich in 2017. The fast-food giant was accused by critics of using bereavement to increase sales. The commercial showed a young boy asking his mother questions about his deceased father, trying to discover some commonalities between the two of them. Eventually, mother and son walk into a McDonalds where the boy inadvertently orders his father’s famous sandwich and it seems that all is well…at least on the silver screen.

In the real world, the chain quickly nixed the ad to put out the flames of negative social media backlash which spread rapidly. The fast-food chain put itself at serious risk for alienating even more customers as it has been struggling to attract more millennial diners.

Dove Body Wash Commercial

As part of its “Campaign for Real Beauty” Unilever’s Dove has launched a plethora of ad campaigns, but it was the dreaded ad in 2011 that completely missed the mark and got people all riled up. After a 30-second TV commercial was released in the US, featuring three women of different races with a label “before” over a black woman and “after” over a white woman, viewers were left dumbfounded about the new level of tone-deaf dove had managed to ascend.

It wasn’t long after the clip was published that Dove rushed to unequivocally apologize for any offense caused by the ad, releasing a statement via Twitter and Facebook. The group made it clear that an internal review process for making and approving social media ads was underway to prevent this kind of mistake in future. While an apology like this would have been sufficient in an ordinary case, it was the second time that Dove was accused of racism, and this time people weren’t so willing to forgive.

The brand’s track record of distasteful advertisements, however, hasn’t marred Dove’s financial standings. Since embarking on its unique initiative Dove has not only won a plethora of ad awards and sold tons of product, it has also enjoyed a hefty sales jump to $4 billion today from $2.5 billion 14 years ago in its inaugural year. But has the company managed to accomplish its main goal of changing perceptions of race and body image?

Research conducted by Harvard psychologist Nancy Etcoff, who examined the campaign then and now, found that more women today define beauty on a broader spectrum of qualities, particularly confidence. Etcoff’s research also concludes that nowadays women form beauty ideals more so on social media than traditional media. The research project was funded entirely by Unilever, but Dove isn’t taking all of the credit. “I’m sure we’ve played some part,” said Steve Miles, senior VP-global marketing.

Ultimately these campaigns serve as textbook examples of what happens when big brands rely solely on their reputation, numbers, and statistics, instead of trying to anticipate the emotional responses each campaign will evoke within real human beings. While moments of misjudgment are inevitable, the way your business remedies a blunder will usually be just as, if not more, memorable in the media’s mind than the actual misfire itself.