Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Fashion company Benetton caved in to pressure from the Vatican and pulled a Photoshopped ad that showed Pope Benedict XVI kissing a leading Islamic imam, the International Business Times reported Thursday.The Vatican responded with furious protests over the image in the company’s Unhate campaign, released Wednesday, which showed the Pope smooching with Egyptian Grand Imam Ahmed el-Tayyeb.“This is a grave lack of respect for the Pope,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi fumed.

It's ugly....

In 2012, some of the worst ads aired had a theme: an overwhelming sense of self-importance. Insisting that everyone take you as seriously as you take yourself can be fatal for brands -- as this ranking shows.

Sure, there are a couple of awful local ads, as always. But you'd be surprised at the big brands who dropped stinkers this year, too. Companies that should have known better, like Harvey Nichols, Chanel and Sidney Frank all made our list.

Also see the best ads of 2012 here, to get an idea of how high the standard ought to be. And then see what the bottom of the barrel looks like...

[Yep, they're Bad PR too ~ Jeff]

JWT India created a series of disturbing ads for the FordFigo, one of which shows former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi flashing a peace sign from the front seat of a car that has three curvaceous women tied up and gagged in the trunk. Ford and JWT have both issued an apology.

Ford did not approve the ads; the agency was just publishing some speculative renderings to show off its creative chops. JWT India is Ford's agency for the Figo in that country....

Toshiba's latest ad campaign portrays medical test subjects as freaks, an approach that puzzled the Association of Clinical Research Organizations.

Although most consumers know Toshiba as an electronics company, part of its business in the U.S. is the manufacturing of diagnostic and medical imagining equipment.

In fact, Toshiba American Medical Systems is looking for young people—ages 6 months to 18 years of age—to participate in a study to improve the MRI experience, according to ClinicalTrials.gov.

Yet a Toshiba ad campaign for its Satellite Ultrabook computer portrays people who take part in clinical trials as freaks. A young man—only slightly older than the people Toshiba Medical Systems seeks for its MRI study—is cast as a “professional medical test subject.” During the 30-second commercial, he is subjected to bizarre experiments that turn him into a purple-faced monster. At one point he refers to the subjects of clinical trials as “test monkeys.”...

[A lame ad that won't sell many computers and as a benefit offended an influential group of scientists. Dearth of real creative these days IMHO - JD]