IMC Hawks Blog

Tag: deceptive advertising

  • Deceptively Skinny

    How can a company or brand draw traffic to its website? How can a retail store capture people’s attention? Maybe by doing this:

    Released on March 20, 2013, American Eagle invited us to go to their website to purchase our own pair. If this is the first time you have seen or heard about this commercial, you might be wondering what is going on with those jeans and what is American Eagle doing? Thankfully, they are not actually trying to sell these “limited edition” Skinny Skinny jeans. The “jeans” featured in the commercial are in fact spray paint on the models, which American Eagle isn’t trying to sell either. I don’t think anyone wants that trend to start! Their goal with this ad campaign is to grab our attention, which I think it did. The commercial leaves viewers slightly confused and wanting to know more, and the obvious place to look for answers is American Eagle’s Website, which draws in traffic.

    Here you see the two “styles” of jeans, which are indeed spray paint cans. Prior to April Fools Day, it appeared you could buy the spray paint, but it was (always) out of stock. However, you could sign up to receive an email when more paint was available, resulting in the company capturing your email address. Now when you go to their site, you can receive a coupon for $10 off REAL American Eagle jeans.

    This campaign, while strategically deceptive, seems to be successful. As James Twichell explains in Lead Us into Temptation, “What advertising does and how it does it has little to do with the movement of specific goods.” This commercial was strategic in this way because it does not advertise a specific product, or even a product at all. The campaign, I feel, had more to do with American Eagle’s brand image and drawing attention to the brand. As Bob Holobinko, American Eagle’s vice president of brand marketing, said, “we just wanted to have fun, and have fun with our fans, and it was a good opportunity to kind of push it from a brand standpoint and the response has been incredible.” Taking a risk to deceive yet entertain their audience was worth it.

    While I commend their creativity and think this campaign is quite clever, I wonder what the impacts are for the future of advertising, especially the lines of deceptive advertising. While entertaining, it is deceptive from the commercial to the appearance that you can indeed purchase the spray cans. However, people tend to find this acceptable because it is rather funny and ten days later:

    AE April Fools

    So, do you think this kind of deceptive advertising is acceptable because of its entertaining and playful nature? Or do you think advertisements like this could lead to more issues and mistrust about the nature of advertising?

    –Laura Tippett

  • Advertising Pranksters FOOL Consumers

    Bacon flavored mouthwash, lunchmeat DVDs, and glass-bottom airplanes?? This year’s April Fools holiday has caused an eruption of many brands’ foolish pranks going viral on social media. Some brands have even gone as far as creating spoof commercials and print ads along with their playful posts and tweets.

    For example, the P&G brand, “Scope” ran an ad on Facebook promoting their new “Bacon Flavored Mouthwash.” As you can see below, the company created a video spoof and several advertisements with catch phrases such as “Taste breakfast while washing it away” to promote this fictitious new product before they came out with the final phrase, “APRIL FOOLS!”

    Another brand having fun with this holiday is the movie rental company, Red Box, who is advertising “Sandwiches at Redbox.”

    To keep up with their April Fools promotional efforts, Red Box noted that they will be offering 50 cents off their rentals today only by entering the promo code “APRILFOOLS.”

    Virgin Atlantic Airways founder Richard Branson fooled customers in his blog featuring a new “glass-bottom airplane.” (Not for those afraid of heights!)

    The main reason marketers have chosen to embrace April Fools Day pranks is to make consumers laugh and create a lasting impression. However, these advertising pranksters may have another prerogative: by playing April Fools jokes via social media, these brands have the opportunity to go viral and target the new generation of social media natives.

    I think this is a smart tactic for advertisers as it shows that they can poke fun at themselves while promoting a playful culture that consumers can enjoy. Furthermore, as these spoofs go viral, they are gaining more traffic to their company webpages where actual products can be marketed and sold.

    Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking Fast and Slow introduces the idea that our minds are associative machines where there are two systems at work. While advertisers may be promoting fictitious products to fool consumers, they are also taking advantage of our associative minds. By being playful and enjoying the holiday, consumers may associate these brands with being lighthearted and fun, further promoting a positive brand image.

    All in all, these April Fools pranksters have the right idea: using humor in advertising and focusing on building relationships with consumers should lead to a more positive brand image and (hopefully) increasing sales!

    –Julia Tompkins