|
|
| Out of Home | |
|
|
|
| Out of Home | |
mean to offend' Outrage erupts over a billboard in Thailand of Hitler Oct 29, 2009
It featured an image of Adolf Hitler, his left arm raised in mid salute. Below his arm, written in Thai, were the words "Hitler is not dead." You can imagine the outcry that followed: Angry protests from the German and Israeli embassies, and that anger quickly spread beyond, as blogs and news sites around the world picked up the story. One has to wonder, who would ever put up such a billboard? As it happened, it was put up by Louis Tussaud's Waxworks, a museum that prides itself on the likenesses of its historical figures. The message it wanted to convey in saying that Hitler was not dead was in itself harmless: Our figures look so much like the real thing that they appear alive. To the museum's credit, as soon as the protests began, it moved to cover up the billboard and extend its apologies. "We apologize for causing any offense, which was not at all intended. We did not realize it would make people so angry," the museum manager told the Associated Press. There are lessons to be learned from this incident, and the first and most obvious is this: Don't use Hitler or any other murderous dictator to push your product. You’re sure to irritate someone. That's a no-brainer. The second lesson is that while you may push the envelope to get people's attention--it's really the heart of so many alternative campaigns--it's important to understand what you're pushing against--and whom. The risk is that you will cross the line, offending people you hadn't considered when you were planning your campaign, and find yourself with a public relations disaster on your hands. In a recent campaign in South Africa, the owner of a strip club claimed that, my goodness, he had no idea that a billboard boasting that his girls didn't need gender testing would be controversial. The billboard was a clear reference to a South African track champion, a woman, who had undergone gender testing, and it was a hot topic with inflamed opinions on both sides. His billboard hit a nasty nerve, as it was obviously intended to. It got tons of press. In the case of Tussaud's, it was clearly an honest, if somewhat baffling, mistake. The museum certainly understood that Hitler was a bad guy but it obviously had no sense of the wounds the very mention of his name still opens up. A decade ago, a similar controversy erupted in Thailand over a potato chips commercial that showed Hitler and the swastika image. It happens in other countries, too. In Australia, a billboard reading "Jesus Loves Osama," hanging outside a Sydney church, caused a stir two years ago. The church claimed it was simply illustrating the "love your enemies" teaching, but families of victims of 9/11 didn't see the relevance. And earlier this year, DDB Brazil was widely condemned for producing a print and TV ad that showed airplanes aimed at the Twin Towers in New York.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
© 2010 Media Life Privacy Statement |
