OOPS - PR /Marketing Nightmares

Produced February - March 2007

Pickup ad attracts negative coverage

A 60-second music video cum commercial for General Motors Chevrolet’s Silverado truck (link here) has garnered a large amount of criticism in the past few months.

The ad mixes photos and news footage from the past last century with a John Mellencamp song called ‘Our Country’.  The images are both positive and negative with the World Trade Center site featured.

The ad ’Our Country. Our Truck‘ has come under criticism for capitalising on others miseries (ala World Trade Center). ‘Families of September 11’, an organisation formed by relatives of those who died in the terror attacks,  was enraged with cofounder Carie Lemack saying “Have we become so accustomed to exploiting people’s pain that it is acceptable for a company to make money using images of it?”

The ad also came under fire due to its tenuous link between the Silverado heritage and events depicted (the Silverado dates only to the mid 1970s - well after some of the events in the ad).

Chevrolet spokeswoman, Melisa Tezanos said “The reason we can do this with the Chevy Silverado is because the whole spirit of the pickup is to get out there, throw stuff in the back and rebuild things”.

 Bausch & Lomb Crisis

This year it was reported that B&L’s ReNu MoistureLoc lens-cleanser brand apparently caused a rare but potentially blinding cornea infection due to the painful fungus known as fusarium keratitis. While that in itself was not good news what followed was even worse.  B&L waited three days between the time it suspended shipments of ReNu MoistureLoc and the time it actually withdrew the product from store shelves. 

In addition, CEO, Ronald Zarella was used as company spokesperson after he was allegedly exposed for falsely claiming he head a master’s degree in business administration for NY University.

The negative issue gained covered in newspapers, a variety of marketing and pr blogs and even MySpace.

Volvo Giveaway not so giving

 Volvo recently came under fire for its “Who would you give a Volvo to” campaign.

While consumers understood the campaign to be a competition where they could win a Volvo, the response on the Volvo FAQ website was “ The campaign is intended to make people think about the safety initiatives Volvo has taken in vehicle development and therefore why they would consider a Volvo for the special individuals in their lives”.

Some bloggers say that it is a misleading promotion and comments posted at advertising.about.com about the ad said:

 “… the campaign title is deceiving and makes me happy to not give Volvo my time in checking out their website…”

 John Maloney, VP Communications for Volvo Cars of North America said:

“We are comfortable going forward and there is not intent to deceive. It is very clear from the ads that this is about love. It’s about who do you want to protect in your life”.

PR Influences is produced by Network PR, a Sydney-based pr agency which specialises in business, technology and digital communication. For further general information view Network PR’s website, or email us network.syd@networkpr.com.au  for specific assistance.