Brands bear brunt of Social Media outrage

Social media has always been quick to take offense — be it with politicians, actors, films or just about anything. And this is especially true when it comes to advertisements that are politically incorrect. Recently, cab provider Ola’s ad, which attempted to draw a parallel between a girlfriend and a cab ride (calling the former as more expensive) earned a lot of flak on the social media for it’s sexist shades (It forced them to take it down almost immediately). However, this is not the first such instance. Earlier, international food chain Nando’s too invited the ire of social media for their ad about chicken, which read ‘We don’t mind if you touch our bums, or breasts, or even our thighs’. With such a volatile environment that takes offense so easily to deal with, we speak to ad-gurus to decode how important is social media for ads and how to keep an ad controversy free.

Ogilvy’s senior creative director, Sujoy Roy contends that while it may be true that social media’s outrage may not always be justified, the fact remains that the brands are the ones that are worst affected. “It is a very important platform and a lot of people are becoming more and more sensitive about various issues on social media these days. It is definitely not a bad thing, but as far as brands and advertisements are concerned, we need to be more careful about what may cause an outrage. Something like the Ola ad is obviously going to create outrage, so people in advertising need to be more careful.”

Telling us how to make sure an advertisement is received well on social media, national creative director at Leo Burnett, Raj Deepak Das says, “There is surely a need for a strong filter. Speaking about our agency, we have something called the ‘Humankind’ filter. It is something in which we where we try to look at people and not consumers when we make ads. We put ourselves in their shoes to see how our work is accepted. The idea is to ensure that your advertisement serves your purpose and you do not let it affect others in a bad way.”