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11 Disturbingly Offensive Ads That Landed Big Brands in Trouble

Charlotte Berry1447 28-Mar-2019

Advertising has its firm root for marketing a particular brand in different ways. The influence of advertising on people mind cannot be overestimated. It is all about grabbing the attention, focus and concentration of the public or masses. It helps to enlarge the outreach of the brand, revenue generation and make it unforgettable among the audience.

Marketing has been active for the past 30 years in providing recognition to the brands. However, these advertising tactics have adversely affected the brand image once in a lifetime. The wrong advertisement has taken them in the deep seas of trouble. Many types of research have been conducted on the impacts of advertising which data can be acquired by students through professional Dissertation Help ensuring verified facts and figures.

Here is the list of 11 most offensive advertisement that has affected the advertising agencies along with the brands severely:

• Go Daddy Puppy Mills:

11 Disturbingly Offensive Ads That Landed Big Brands in Trouble

Go Daddy came in a blaze of social media rant when they on-aired advertisement in which a puppy went lost. The puppy somehow got back to his home. The owner was happy to see him back only as the add reveals, in the end, was because he sold him on any Go daddy-powered website.

The advertisement caused chaos among animal advocates stating that add presented an idea of puppy mills and inhumane breeding. It initiated a new social media rant that people took on Facebook and Twitter.

• Volkswagen:

11 Disturbingly Offensive Ads That Landed Big Brands in Trouble

In 2015, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against Volkswagen for violating the Clean Air Act. It all started with an advertisement that presented a big brand cheating emission tests on diesel cars for the past seven years. FTC claimed that the company advertising and promotion campaign misguided the customer for the clean diesel vehicles. Therefore FTC demanded the company with a potential fine up to $61 billion for their alleged false claims.

• Red Bulls Gives You wings:

11 Disturbingly Offensive Ads That Landed Big Brands in Trouble

The Red Bull came in trouble back in 2014 for using its tagline" Red bulls gives you wings". A customer is the US sued the company that even using Red bull for ten years he hasn't got any wings or power. The company ultimately had to settle for $13 million which included $10 to every US consumer who had purchased the drink since the year 2002.

• Dove:

11 Disturbingly Offensive Ads That Landed Big Brands in Trouble

Like the old time, Dove comes under the heat again because of one of its racism advertisement. The add focuses on a model changing her brown shirt totally into white after using dove soap. The add became the significant source of generating rant on social media considering it offensive. However, the model Lola Ogunyemi, the Nigerian woman in the ad defends it’s by saying there is nothing offensive in this add.

• Dunkin Donuts:

11 Disturbingly Offensive Ads That Landed Big Brands in Trouble

Back in 2013, Dunkin Donuts on-aired an advertisement in Thailand having a black make-up model to promote their charcoal doughnuts. However, it ablaze the emotions of people getting negative remarks about the add. It was considered as the reminiscence to 19th and 20th-century stereotypes of racism.

• Kellogg’s Rice Krispies cereal:

11 Disturbingly Offensive Ads That Landed Big Brands in Trouble

Kellogg’s faced a severe crisis when they mislead their customer by portraying Product's immunity-boosting capabilities. It misleads the consumers that by consumption of their cereal, the immunity of a child will increase 25 per cent daily value of Antioxidants and Nutrients like Vitamin A, B, C and E. However, FTC filed a lawsuit against the company because of their wrong accusations. The case was settled in 2011 when Kellogg agreed to pay the fine of $2.5 million to the affected consumers.

• Olay, anti-ageing:

11 Disturbingly Offensive Ads That Landed Big Brands in Trouble

The Olay came under crisis with the launch of its new product (definitely eye cream) back in 2009. The ad had model twiggy looking way younger than her age. It was cleared that the wrinkles under her eyes were digitally Photoshop. The advertisement was banned by The British advertising regulator ASA, after receiving more than 700 complaints against.

• Sprite:

11 Disturbingly Offensive Ads That Landed Big Brands in Trouble

Recently a sprite advertisement was launch giving cooling effect by a model using abusive language for spicy food. The ad started a new rant on social media from people that for relating with the youngster, the big brand has to take the support of abusive language. The ad, however, was altered after some time being.

• Reebok:

11 Disturbingly Offensive Ads That Landed Big Brands in Trouble

The brand got in trouble back in 2012 by on-airing a local advertisement having tagline "cheat on your girlfriend, not on your workout". The ad turned out to be chaos and backlash from female consumers. Therefore, resulting in Reebok to publicly remove the add an apology to the public.

• Mercedes Benz:

11 Disturbingly Offensive Ads That Landed Big Brands in Trouble

The Mercedes Benz service department uploaded a video on its YouTube page related to the relationship of the car with its mechanic on the tune of the sexually suggested song. The footage was shortly taken down because of the content, and as per spokesperson of Mercedes Benz, the video was uploaded after in-house appreciation. However, the blogger in Us took it to another direction. To which Mercedez Benz had to apologise for such video.

• AT&T :

11 Disturbingly Offensive Ads That Landed Big Brands in Trouble

AT&T tried to market their phones by comparing it to Blueberry services. The occasion was the 12th anniversary of the terror attack on 11 September 2001. They took Blueberry Z10 phone taking blur picture of two columns of light on the zero ground and uploaded it on twitter. It created a backlash of the customer on Twitter by hurting their sentiments to which the company had to apologise publicly.



Updated 04-Mar-2020

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