Trade commentators have noticed a welter of really offensive ads lately, and a suspicious pattern: an ad is released online that no sentient being could possibly believe is tasteful or appropriate, the ad attracts exactly the kind of negative response that any 13-year-old could have predicted, and the company remorsefully removes it, with an abject apology. The latest of this invasive species was a Hyundai ad showing a despondent man rigging a hose from a Hyundai IX35’s exhaust pipe to the car interior as a suicide attempt. As he sits in his car, waiting to die by inhaling carbon monoxide in the dark garage, a light comes on he opens the garage door, with the words appearing on the screen, “The New IX35 with 100% water emissions.” See? You can’t kill yourself with a Hyundai! Hilarious!
Yechhh, and most viewers detested the ad. Hyundai Motor Europe quickly responded,
“We understand that some people may have found the IX35 video offensive. We are very sorry if we have offended anyone. We have taken the video down and have no intention of using it in any of our advertising or marketing.”
“No intention”? That’s odd, because the ad was already online. Hyundai North America quickly took the moral high ground in apparent contrast to its European sibling. “We at Hyundai Motor America are shocked and saddened by the depiction of a suicide attempt in an inappropriate UK video featuring a Hyundai,’ it said. “Suicide merits thoughtful discussion, not this type of treatment.”
Writes B.B. Ochman at Ad Age:
“Do you believe that the ad was conceived, storyboarded, cast, shot and edited without Hyundai’s knowledge? If that’s true, I’m Queen Elizabeth.”
She isn’t Queen Elizabeth, but she is right. This, and other examples she cites, are transparently dishonest and cynical stunts designed to attract attention to a product and a brand. It doesn’t matter if 98% of the market is horrified by an ad; how many consumers refuse to buy a product they crave because the advertising is offensive? Few, and companies know it. So they employ a revolting strategy that is dishonest and hurtful, but that in the timeless, warped anti-ethics of advertising, is brilliant: attract attention with the disgusting ad, get news coverage by apologizing and pulling it, know that millions will want to see what the fuss is all about, and rest assured that the ad, like anything placed on the web, will be watched forever anyway.
When we see this scenario, we should recognize that it is a complete sham, and that it has been approved top to bottom. If every exec and advertising agency responsible for creating and greenlighting disgusting ads were immediately fired, as they should be, there would be no more instances of shocked and mournful press releases by companies saying that an ad “is not who we are” and “contradicts everything we stand for.” In fact, these ads are intentionally offensive and designed to attract condemnation. They also accurately reflect the values and priorities of the companies that release them. “Anything for a profit,” “if it works, it’s ethical,” and “the ends justify the means” pretty much sum them up. The ugly ads will continue to work, and companies will continue to make, release, pull, and apologize for increasingly horrible ones until the public punishes companies for being unethical.
I have yet to see any indication that this will happen. If you don’t believe me, just ask Queen Elizabeth.
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Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
Nothing will happen unless an ad actually ends up doing some damage. Otherwise, you know the responses “lighten up,” “if you don’t like it change the channel,” oh, and my favorite, which usually translates to some form of “when you match the success of these tactics, we can talk, until then, sit down and put a sock in it.”
This seems like a derivative of the old adage, “It’s better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.” It also points up the commercial value of that proposition.
Instead of testing the lines to find out where they are, these companies are producing ads guaranteed to be over the line, but not quite atrocious enough to draw demands for legislation. It seems they have a pretty good idea where the line actually is, anyway.
The problem is, with the exception of a small minority who have some kind of personal experience that resonates with the tastelessness of the ads, people who view these on line pitches have short attention spans. They are all to willing to accept an apology, even a transparently fake one. After all, we are only supposed to be intolerant of intolerance.
Not only that, the people who actually watch these things on line are a small minority of all car buyers, so Hyundai knows that any damage will be outweighed by their true target demographic — young people who have yet to face tragedy in their lives and might actually find it funny in an era where dark entertainment is all the rage, and in this case, “green” thought might actually be the message received.
Unethical? Undoubtedly. And sooner or later, somebody will make one so completely horrible that some congressman or other will call for hearings, depending on whether it’s a liberal or conservative ox being gored by the spot. Sad, but probably a fact of life.
Then again, when you see the SportKa commercials featuring the car beheading a cat and killing birds, it fits right in. You also have to see the Ford ad with Berlusconi driving a Ford minivan with a bunch of bound and gagged women in the back and the slogan “Leave your worries behind”. Europe is something else when it comes to this. That is why they look at us as a bunch of puritanical prudes.
Admen (women) are all whores. Period. Ever noticed that the most engaging and creative ads are for products one doesn’t remember what is being sold? I have never been able to believe how much money these admen(women) make, and how little intelligence their employers seem to possess.