You have publicity and then you have.. publicity

A month ago, a Turkish shampoo brand launched a commercial which arouse some criticism:

In this commercial, we can see an adaptation of one of Hitler’s speeches, in order to tell people how, to be a real man, one must use the Biomen shampoo. This way, Biomen shampoos are relating the image of the real and strong man with Hitler and his ideas. This kind of connection caught attention to a lot of experts and buyers (especially Jews), for the wrong reasons: "It's totally unacceptable to make use of Hitler, the most striking example of cruelty and savagery," said the Turkish Jewish Community. 

For this matter, we know that the brand tried to use Hitler’s image as a mockery, following the idea of the “Hitler reacts to…” videos (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can always search “Hitler reacts to” in Youtube and pick one example. I’ll leave you one right here). The thing is, the brand didn’t realize that their message could be taken the wrong way: having Hitler telling you that if you want to be a real man, you have to buy Biomen, it could not have the same result in everyone. Some might find it funny, others (like the Jewish Community, as we were able to see) may feel strongly offended with that connection. 

Each brand should know, not only their target, but also who could possible get in touch with their ads. In this case, even if the usage of this character resulted in the brand being talked about everywhere, the thing that were being said about it weren’t that positive. A few days after the campaign being launched, the commercial was off the air. For the online comunity, it was a Youtube phenomenon , with 414152 vies. But, for what we know, it might have worked: the youtube video got 779 likes and only 518 dislikes. If the young people in Turkey think just like the ones who rate Youtube videos, maybe the brand was right after all and the commercial did work. All in all, bad publicity it’s still publicity. 

Inês Maria