McDonald's Giveaways: Consumers Not Lovin' It
Gone are the days of getting a small frisbee in your Happy Meal. In August 2006, GM and McDonald's joined forces to give away 42 million toy Hummers in Happy Meals. GM hoped the promotion would help market its Hummer brand to parents through their children.
A HummerKids Web site and new commercials were created for the campaign. At the same time, Hummer launched a new ad campaign for the H3.
The controversy over the giveaway started before the first toy Hummer was handed out. Parents and environmental groups immediately voiced their displeasure over the giveaway, especially since both companies admitted they were trying to market the vehicle to parents through their children.
McDonald's addressed the situation, which then caused further controversy. A company blog post stated, "Looked at through children's eyes, the miniature Hummers are just toys, not vehicle recommendations or a source of consumer messages about natural resource conservation, greenhouse gas emissions, etc." But when the blog's visitors clicked on the blog's Comments link to share their own opinion, they noticed their comments never showing up. These commenters made sure to voice their outrage on other sites across the Internet.
It was only a couple of months later when another giveaway took a bite out of McDonald's PR image. In October 2006, a promotion to give away 10,000 MP3 players branded with the McDonald's logo in Japan went awry when users found their free MP3 players came with 10 free songs and a Trojan virus. When they plugged them into their PCs, the virus stole their user names, passwords and other private info and sent the data to hackers.
Consumer-Generated Ads Burn GM
Consumer-generated ads have become a new trend in advertising but they don't always go as planned. Chevrolet teamed with NBC's The Apprentice in March 2006 to launch a commercial contest for the Chevy Tahoe. Consumers could visit a special Chevrolet site, arrange video and music clips of the Tahoe how they wanted and add fonts to create their own commercials for the SUV.
Soon anti-SUV ads began popping up on the company's site. Chevrolet didn't remove the negative ads and more soon followed. The buzz swept across the Internet, the contest backfired and Chevrolet learned how advertising shouldn't always be left in the hands of consumers.
Race Relations
Using people to convey a black and white message is a fine line to walk in advertising. And so far, two companies have found themselves failing miserably in this area.
In the summer of 2006, Sony learned that having a white woman holding a black woman by the jaw to promote its ceramic white Playstation Portable wasn't a very good idea. The billboard only ran in the Netherlands but the controversy sparked debates around the world.
At first, Sony defended its billboard. The company said it only wanted to "highlight the whiteness of the new model or contrast the black and the white models." Later, Sony pulled the ad and apologized.
Apparently, Intel didn't get the sensitivity to others memo, though. In August 2007, the company found itself in the center of controversy over a print ad showing a white man surrounded by six sprinters.
What's the big deal? The sprinters are black and appear to be bowing to the white man.
Complaints caused Intel to remove the ad and they issued an apology through the company's Web site, saying the intent was to "convey the performance capabilities of our processors through the visual metaphor of a sprinter." The apology goes on to say, "Unfortunately, our execution did not deliver our intended message and in fact proved to be insensitive and insulting."
Blogging Can Be Disastrous
While blogging can be a great PR tool, it can also be a disaster if you try to fool consumers. Raging Cow, a Dr. Pepper/7 Up product, became a classic example of this in 2003.
A group of teens was brought in and briefed on the Raging Cow flavored milk. They were told to go out and blog about this new product but not divulge that they were being told to do so. The company hoped the word of mouth advertising would make the new product a hit.
The lack of authenticity behind the blogging, along with a fictional mascot's blog, spread across the Internet. Hard core bloggers protested, the milk was briefly sold in a few test cities and the product ultimately flopped.
Wal-Mart will also go down in advertising history with an outed fake blog. In September 2006, a Wal-Marting Across America blog hit the Internet.
The blog featured two Wal Mart fans named Jim and Laura who drove their RV across America to talk with Wal-Mart employees. Their travels and experiences were documented on their blog.
However, what wasn't documented on the blog was the fact that Wal-Mart compensated Jim and Laura to write the blog, paid for the RV they drove around in and even scheduled the duos itinerary. The blog was exposed and mysteriously disappeared off the net.
PR firm Edelman admitted it was the mastermind behind the fake Wal-Mart blog. Edelman was also behind two additional Wal-Mart blogs that were uncovered later.
Tricking consumers is never a way to gain their business. With real blog posts blasting companies who try to fool consumers, the damage of fake blogs can be long-lasting.
