Offensive or Brilliant?

Advertising is a volatile equation--part brilliance and part madness, it is very easy to cross over that fine line into madness and poor taste. This week we were asked to analyze 4 ads that are somewhat controversial and then discuss an ad that we find offensive.

I found the first ad for the Norwegian Association of the Blind much more offensive than the second as it implies that a boss can get away with doing inappropriate things at work because they have hired a blind employee. It is a humorous change of perspective as the obvious message would have been how the blind benefit from having a steady job rather than how your office can benefit from hiring the blind.

I found the tweets from Kenneth Cole to be very offensive. While the second tweet seems to be Kenneth Cole's attempt at crisis control, he clearly should have consulted his PR agency before doing so as I find it does much more harm than the first. If he truly "[understood] the sensitivity of this historic moment" then clearly he would have never tweeted about it in the first place. Trying to commercialize on such a historic moment is not only ignorant but egotistical.

The ads for Happy Dent Gum featuring images of Gandhi and Mother Teresa don't particularly bother me. I don't personally understand the message exactly and it seems like a very random association but I don't find it offensive or in poor taste.

The ad for Cake Imagery Retouching bothers me the most as it is making fun of women who are not the model type by implying that Cake Retouching can turn any women into a model. I am not surprised at all to read that the ad was done by an all male team and I can guarantee that the ad would have never been made if there was a single girl involved. While the ad certainly does a good job of demonstrating the company's "benefits", it also successfully alienates just about every female viewer.

One of the most offensive ads that I have ever seen was the "Save the Whales" billboard for PETA. Known for its "you're either with us or against us" mentality, PETA opts for advertising that is provoking and suggestive, and in my opinion a little misguided. However, this is PETA advertising at its worst. It is not only distasteful and offensive, but downright awful as it blatantly attacks any overweight, meat-eating woman. And as a previous vegetarian who believes in much of what PETA is fighting for, this ad single-handedly alienates me from their cause, which is the exact opposite of what their ads should be doing.