16 FEATURE
MARKETING 2019marketingmag.com.auWhen the truth hurts
Milan Kundera once said, “Business only has two
functions: marketing and innovation.” Either a
brand is busy creating something or it’s busy telling
everyone about it. But what happens when the
marketing promise fails to deliver? Who’s to blame
when authentic marketing turns out to be anything
but? We have highlighted fi ve of the worst offenders
- brands forced to endure the aftermath when the
truth shone a light on their lack of authenticity.
- BRAND: BP
MOMENT OF TRUTH: DEEPWATER
HORIZON RIG (2010)
After spending more than $200 million on
marketing to improve its brand image, BP was dealt
a catastrophic blow in 2010 when one of its rigs
exploded. The disaster at the Deepwater Horizon
rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and saw
more than three million barrels of crude oil released
into the ocean, killing wildlife and ruining nearby
tourism and fi shing industries. The impact to the
company was immediate, with chief executive Bob
Dudley calling it a “near death experience” and share
prices falling 55 percent in a year. BP was seen as
a laughing stock in the industry, with Greenpeace
even launching a contest for people to design BP’s
new logo. Five years after the spill, BP agreed to pay
a massive US$18.7 billion in fi nes. This is the largest
corporate settlement in US history. In 2016 the
blockbuster fi lm, Deepwater Horizon, was released.
- BRAND: SEAWORLD (US)
MOMENT OF TRUTH: BLACKFISH (2013)
Few documentaries have shaken an industry like the
compelling Blackfi sh. Released in 2013, it relayed
the aggression of an Orca whale and its link to the
deaths of three individuals, as well as the issues that
eventuate when people attempt to keep wild animals
in captivity. SeaWorld US (unrelated to the Australian
SeaWorld) claimed that the fi lm was, “not an
objective documentary, but... propaganda... To make
these ultimately false and misleading points, the fi lm
conveys falsehoods, manipulates viewers emotionally
and relies on questionable fi lmmaking techniques to
create ‘facts’ that support its point of view.”
SeaWorld’s message didn’t seem to have an impact
on audiences, however. In a 2014 Consumerist Worst
Company in America poll, SeaWorld came third.- BRAND: VOLKSWAGEN
MOMENT OF TRUTH: DEFEAT DEVICE (2015)
The automotive industry is renowned for its
advertising spend. In a 2015 study by Statista based
on the US market, automotive advertising spend was
second only to retail, coming in at US$3.49 billion
for the third quarter alone. In such a competitive
market the need to stand out is crucial. But in 2015,
automotive giant Volkswagen was standing out for
all the wrong reasons. Eager to dominate the US
market, the German brand spent millions marketing
its cars’ low emissions, only to be found guilty of
utilising a ‘defeat device’ and cheating emissions
tests. According to a report on the BBC the same
year, the defeat device (or software) in diesel engines
“could detect when they were being tested, changing
the performance accordingly to improve results.”
VW America boss Michael Horn told the BBC, “We’ve
totally screwed up”, while Martin Winterkorn, then
the group’s chief executive, stated the company had
“broken the trust of our customers and the public.”- BRAND: PEPSI
MOMENT OF TRUTH: KENDALL JENNER
CAMPAIGN (2017)Perhaps one of the worst instances of authenticity
gone wrong was the 2017 Pepsi commercial featuring
TV personality and model Kendall Jenner alongside a
group of protestors (all complete with Pepsi in hand).
After being accused of trivialising the Black Lives
Matter movement, Pepsi canned the advert, with a
spokeswoman for the company suggesting, “Pepsi
was trying to project a global message of unity, peace