Global Web Means Your 'Fart Jokes' Can Be Heard Out of Context

How Grey Germany and Doc Morris Blew It With the 'Evil Sperm' Ads

Posted by Chris Abraham on 06.15.09 @ 02:20 PM

Chris Abraham

Earlier this year Grey Germany put out three condom ads for Doc Morris pharmacies. They were attempts to wittily imply that the human race could have been spared three uber-butchers of the past century (Mao Tze-Tung, Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden), and the horror and suffering they brought, by a simple condom (a Doc Morris condom, natch). The humble rubber as a superhero and savior of humanity -- there definitely is potential for some wonderful, dark, absurdist humor in that idea.

I can totally see how a certain young, urbane sector of German society could find these ads really quite funny and compelling -- as they did the suicide-themed Pepsi One ads done last year that offended so many outside the target demographic.

The Doc Morris condom ads depicted Hitler, as well as Mao Zedong and Osama Bin Laden.

Now, unfortunately for Grey and for Doc Morris, not everyone thought the "Evil Sperm" ads were funny. Quite a few people thought they were racist, insensitive, offensive and inappropriate -- and now those adjectives are associated with Doc Morris pharmacies in people's heads.

That's the way it is with humor -- sometimes you nail it, sometimes you bomb. Humor is powerful in both directions.

A simple allegory for old-media folks who still don't get it: Standing up and telling a fart joke while drinking with friends in your rec room = low risk. Standing up and telling a fart joke while drinking with friends at someone's wedding party = high risk.

With internet advertising and PR, you are always at someone's wedding party; you are never safely behind closed doors. If you try to be loud and draw attention to yourself, as advertisers and PR folk generally do, the people at the next table are going to hear it -- and if you're testing the limits of good taste with your humor, the odds are that those uptight grandmas and squares and stuffed shirts who just don't appreciate your super-edgy wit are going to think poorly of you and perhaps even whack you with their cash-filled Vera Bradley handbags.

Here are some realities of the media world of 2009 that old-school advertising and PR would be well served to note:

You can't expect your messaging to stay contained within your target demographic. The information you put out will spread, and that spread is beyond your control. There are only two reasons why information doesn't spread once it is out: a) people are just uninterested in your message, b) it's in a language people don't speak (which is really just a subset of "a," frankly). Note: Images like the "Evil Sperm" ads are language-less, so they will jump the language barrier with glee.
You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. There is no memory hole with the internet. Book-burning is so 20th century. Babelsplatz was yesterday. If you put it out, it is there to stay (even if folks like Ads of the World are willing to censor).
Hiding and praying it will go away rarely works. Like every good stand-up comic knows, if your routine is bombing, the only thing you can do is keep talking. It's double or nothing. The only treatment for unfortunate speech is more speech.

So, what does this mean concretely? How does the modern PR/advertising flack deal with the fact that we live in a world where toothpaste gets irretrievably out of the tube and will probably ooze into places we never wanted to have it? Well ...

Craft your message with the knowledge that it will likely go where you didn't intend it to go. One thing this could mean is don't do messages that, while they may resonate with one of your customer demographics, are bound to offend others. Grey's "Evil Sperm" and Pepsi's suicide ads fall into that category. Alternately, if you can't resist putting out offensive stuff, because it's just so incredibly funny and will make your targets buy and your colleagues green with professional envy, then have your mea culpa marketing strategy ready in advance to take advantage of the probable result -- a social-media shitstorm -- as Pepsi did with its suicide ads (more on mea culpa marketing below).
Don't humiliate yourself by begging (or worse, demanding) bloggers to go back and censor your screw-up. As a blogger, I say deleting posts is cool only in the rarest of circumstances -- generally only when an innocent individual will be hurt or put in danger by the information -- never when it's just embarrassing to a company. Trying to get bloggers to censor information is just going to offend them further, make them question your ethics and increase the chance that they will react to you with animosity.
Have your mea culpa machine ready to roll. If you offend with your communications, keep communicating -- your best hope is to dilute your screw-up with evidence that you really are upstanding folks who made a little mistake. If you are really good at this, you can jujitsu the negative into positive and come out well ahead, with free positive publicity and goodwill among influencers and your target markets. How do you do this?

In essence, it's quite simple, just remember these three things: On the internet, you are always talking to the whole world, whether you intend to or not; be cognizant of who your message will offend and decide deliberately if you are willing to offend them; and if you must offend, have your mea culpa machine ready to go before you pull the trigger.

This is the media world of 2009 -- it's simple transparency and good human relations. There's really no excuse for blowing it.

~ ~ ~
Chris Abraham, president of the digital-PR firm Abraham Harrison, is a blogger who specializes in social-media marketing with a focus on blogger outreach, blogger engagement and search-reputation management. Chris lives in Berlin and Washington.

20 Comments

By rsaling | Surprise, AZ June 16, 2009 02:37:27 am:

While creative, the ads are in very poor taste. I don't know how anyone in the agency or client side would approve these. A much better strategy would be going after STD's or showing a person their future consequences of not wearing the condom. The anti smoking ads which are very graphic and disturbing would be interesting as well.

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By pdauncey | Cardiff June 16, 2009 03:02:06 am:

This is great and highlights that social media within a marketing strategy should be taken very seriously, as the negative implications if managed inappropriately could be really damaging. Hate those adverts however, can't believe they thought that anyone would find them funny, I think they wanted to shock more than humour.

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By EMPSKHC | Waukesha, WI June 16, 2009 11:39:08 am:

There is nothing that indicated the agency was manned by old school marketers or by old people for that matter. Just stupid ones. I would not be surprised at all to learn the idea smiths were 20 somethings who had no idea what these historical villains to some are heros to others and what they symbolize in certain circles. Far too many young people are insensitive and unknowledgeable about various cultures and histories to understand how easily people can be offended.

Not to imply that only young peoples make mistakes either but it's an easy copout to imply it must be old school thinking rather than just plain no thinking.

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By KetaKeta | Tel Aviv June 16, 2009 01:59:40 pm:

While I agree with the thesis for cultural and subcultural sensitivities, some humor can strike a common denominator. This fart ad, for example, has over 20 million organic views so I guess not too many people found it offensive, despite the subject.

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By KetaKeta | Tel Aviv June 16, 2009 02:00:16 pm:

Sorry, the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjJG8ODKusQ

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By grahamcallander | SANTA CRUZ, CA June 16, 2009 02:31:10 pm:

The evil sperm condom ads must have been influenced by an idea that made the rounds ten years ago. I recall seeing a small QuickTime movie of an ad for a British brand of condoms. I suspect it was created not by the manufacturer's ad agency, but by a student who wanted an edgy ad for his or her reel. It was passed around as an email attachment, the 90s way to circulate viral video. The villains whose births could have been prevented if only their parents had used a rubber were, if I remember right, Hitler, Stalin and some other cretin whose name I don't recall (definitely not bin Laden, whom few people had heard of back then).

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By sebwest | Chicago, IL June 16, 2009 03:51:03 pm:

I feel like the obvious is being stated here. All public advertising lets others listen in. Those who have thought of the internet as a geo- and demo-targeted niche have not fully misunderstood how it works in real life.

And, Chris, the appalling book-burnings took place in Berlin on Bebelplatz, not Babelsplatz. Case in point, I guess: I'm a Berliner, reading your article in my Chicago office! :)

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By chrisabraham | Washington, DC June 16, 2009 05:13:12 pm:

@EMPSKHC -- Be careful not to make the mistake to assume "old people" when you hear "old school marketers" - or vice versa! There's little correlation - it's an attitude, not an age. Indeed, all four of the authors of "The Cluetrain Manifesto" were born before 8-track tapes were even invented. Dude, that's old... but they're anything but old school.

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By chrisabraham | Washington, DC June 16, 2009 05:13:34 pm:

@sebwest - Stimmt! Finger schneller als Kopf... shouldn't have messed up "Bebelplatz" seeing as one of my favorite haunts for afternoon Kaffee und Kuchen, the Operncafe, is right there...

And yes... it should be obvious that any ad produced today will leak beyond the intended geo/demo-target, but flubs like this show that that reality is just not top of mind at all for many ad execs - and even if they are aware of it, they go into such minefields with no plan of action for dealing with the potential blowback. There's no reason nowadays to assume a provocative ad won't provoke a bunch of people in the wrong way, and thus, as a responsible ad exec, there should be no reason not to have a blowback-response plan ready in the back pocket, set to roll to get the maximum mileage off the attention if/when the blowback happens!

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By craigcooper | craigcooper.com, NY June 17, 2009 01:33:58 am:

And then there is the sad fact that no matter what you do, someone, somewhere, will take offense.

I wouldn't get too worked up about it else your work become invisible.

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By chrisabraham | Washington, DC June 17, 2009 07:57:19 am:

What do you guys think about the Palin debacle that David Letterman is dealing with?

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By Terry | Melbourne June 17, 2009 08:05:25 pm:

To stand out in today's cluttered media environments, work needs to be provocative. But provocative doesn't need to be offensive.

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By chrisabraham | Washington, DC June 18, 2009 06:22:31 pm:

@Terry One man's provocative and another man's offensive -- that's the entire theme of the article, right?

"I can totally see how a certain young, urbane sector of German society could find these ads really quite funny and compelling -- as they did the suicide-themed Pepsi One ads done last year that offended so many outside the target demographic."

The young, urbane, German were maybe provoked but there were not offended.

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By jkrawl | Chicago, IL July 29, 2009 01:40:24 pm:

In my opinion, as long as an advertisement delivers its intended marketing message then it has fulfilled its proposed purpose. As for the Evil Sperm ad, I can clearly see how it can be offensive to a certain group of people. However, as much as I don't want to admit it, the ad did do its job well. It was not done in the taste or manner that I would have deemed as generally appropriate, but the message comes across clear. If you decide to promote shocking & risky ads, then you have to also have your mea culpa marketing response ready & prepared, just in case things blow up!

Frank
http://www.absrocketpro.com

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By shmitche | tampa, FL August 16, 2009 02:21:56 am:

The truth is Advertisers are pushing the envelope all the time.. actually it's expected. Even though to me advertisers can cross that moral threshold for their own ends allot like lawyers and media, they know that the risk of an uproar or outrage is well worth the value of one sensationalistic ad that hits the mark and creates a massive buzz.

Mitch
http://buycontemporaryfireplace.com

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By gmiddleton | Indiana, PA August 18, 2009 09:15:22 am:

Hmmm... wrong, or right, the Evil Sperm ad got their name out there, which is what they wanted either way. Something along those lines in the U.S. would probably not fly, as there would be an outcry for certain. In terms of the humor behind it, it goes back to comedy and a difference of what's funny vs. not. For instance, here in the U.S., the show "The Office" has been a smash hit, as it previously was in the U.K. Now no offense to the British, but I didn't get the humor in their original series of the show. Once converted to the "U.S." style of comedy, it's a bit racy, offensive, yet hysterical at the same time.

Best,

Gaston
http://www.Ultimate-Resell-Rights.com

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By BPoston | Raleigh, NC August 18, 2009 09:02:09 pm:

There are so many examples of "campaigns" that are meant to be controversial these days, just to get the appropiate number of hits to the site or blog. Every decent marketer will tell you that posting about a heated topic will get more eyeballs. When in the effort to promote healthy dialog and discovery of alternate views, this is very good thing. When it's only for site rankings, that's when the public outcry (if any) is justified.

Ben
http://www.howtobuildgolfclubs.com

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By kablyden | Huntersville, NC August 25, 2009 08:44:10 am:

Great Article... The days of old are gone... We live in a global market place now and with the internet, viral marketing, and social media a whisper can be heard around the world... I wonder though if this controversy was not intentionally created by Grey Germany... There is no cheaper and easier way to get hoards of attention than to be controversial.. Controversy is also great for viral marketing... "Bad publicity is better than no publicity at all".Controversy breads interest and sometimes passionate opposing sides... The offended are probably not heavy consumers of the product anyway and their offense will potentially cause a higher number of the target group to take notice and become a passionate defender of the product.. " The Us against the world mentality"...

Not bad... Not bad at all..(marketing I mean)

Kirschan Blyden
http://www.fdiinsider.com

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By websmart | Stone Mountain, GA September 14, 2009 01:43:21 am:

Good article. My additional points are that it's best to always have a review of your edgy ads prior to release and ask a group of non-business (of varied socio-economic backgrounds) people if there is anything they find offensive or in poor taste. We as business people are almost never our target market and are very poor judges of these things. It's been my experience that generally non-business people can see and find many more things to be selectively indignant about that we business people can. The best people for this are the ones that are the drama kings and queens of the world and tend to live their life looking for things to be indignant about.

My other point is to use a PR firm to handle your mea culpa. Minimizing bad press is a job for professionals. Some companies are hurt with long-term profit hits after a runaway bad press event. Not a smart move to try saving money with inadequate in-house crisis management.

Ed
http://www.goalssettingtips.com/goals-setting/creating-business-goals-for-success

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By novels76 | Indi, PA February 2, 2010 04:53:05 pm:

In terms of the humor behind it, it goes back to comedy and a difference of what's funny vs. not. For instance, here in the U.S., the show "The Office" has been a smash hit, as it previously was in the U.K. Now no offense to the British, but I didn't get the humor in their original series of the show. Once converted to the "U.S." style of comedy, it's a bit racy, offensive, yet hilarious at the same time.

Sim
http://www.Innovative-Enclosures.com

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