Opinion | Nivea Needs to Do Better

Advertising departments and agencies have to be very aware of what type of message they are sending to their audience when creating a campaign, advertisement, or commercial for a business or client. The copy and visual portions of an advertisement go through several different sub-departments before they are finalized and approved to make sure there are no errors. But sometimes, a mistake can be overlooked, creating a whirlwind of bad publicity that can ultimately tarnish a company's character and customer relationships. In March of 2017, Nivea faced severe backlash when they posted a deodorant advertisement for their customer base in the Middle East. As shown below, the phrase "WHITE IS PURITY", is boldly centered underneath the back of a woman who is sitting on the side of a bed while facing towards a window. 

Soon after the ad was posted on Nivea's Facebook page, it became viral on various social media platforms, with many viewers flooding news feeds and timelines with criticism and personal opinions on the advertisement. A majority of people were baffled by Nivea's oblivion to how the ad could be perceived as promoting white supremacy. Twitter was especially used to voice attitudes about the ad, as it became the topic of discussion throughout the day and night.

                                 

But this was not the first time Nivea had been under scrutiny. Back in 2011, the company was accused of racial insensitivity after posting an ad stating, "Re-civilize yourself" and "Look Like You Give A Damn". The ad depicted an African-American man who looks as if he is about to throw away his own dismembered head with an afro-styled hairdo in exchange for his newly trimmed hairstyle and clean-shaven face. The ad was widely criticized for its comparison to having naturally styled hair as equivocating to someone being lazy or uncivilized. 

                                          

The ad was quickly pulled after receiving such negative feedback, but resurfaced after the launch of the "WHITE IS PURITY" campaign, serving as a reminder to viewers that this was not the first time Nivea had come up with a seemingly racist advertisement. With people now realizing that Nivea had a history of ads with racially insensitive themes, there was now speculation that the company in its entirety supported white power. 

                                           

Although Nivea removed both of these advertisements and issued individual statements explaining how diversity is something they value and discrimination is not tolerated, that does not ultimately make up for what occurred; that both of these ads were deemed acceptable for publication by the company. Nivea allowed this to happen twice, with a six year span between the advertisements. How dis they have that much time to process and reflect on where they went wrong, only to make the same mistake again? 

 Nowadays, people are not so forgiving of a company when it is at fault. Misunderstanding and improper direction are poor excuses as to why copywriting, marketing, creative, and advertising teams allow ads like these to be finalized and approved. It's especially important for companies to remember that social media acts as an archive system, storing anything and everything they do, good or bad, whether they like it or not. So, if Nivea wants to create a better brand image and gain back its diverse, international customer base, it is going to have to do more than send out apology letters.

When Your Ad Goes Viral - Click to Share!

In this busy world we live in, it is quite hard to grab people’s attention. It gets even harder when there are so many things readily available in the internet world and so many people with different interests. That is until your advertisement succeeds at catching people’s attention so much that the busy world of the internet helps your company get noticed through a viral post across the world.

EDEKA, a German supermarket company created a Christmas advertisement where they told the story of an elderly father whose children – who were actually adults that shared a busy life and/or successful career and lived far away – were never home for Christmas. He is shown sitting at the dinner table on Christmas Eve alone for many years up until he gets tired of it and plans a trick on his children so they would come home. He fakes his own death – yes, I know – and so everybody comes home to the surprise that, whoops, he is still alive and tricked everybody! They then get to sit at the table and enjoy a family Christmas Eve dinner to EDEKA purchased foods and drinks.

The advertisement became viral for many different reasons. Many people were very touched and even cried during the advertisement – not me… maybe me – and many people were quite outraged by a father who lies to his children and grandchildren about his own fake, planned and as a means to an end death. Regardless of how people felt about it, being an international student myself and also being friends with many other internationals on Facebook, I was able to notice how viral the advertisement actually became. Not only many known social media pages were reposting and commenting about the video in the United States, but my friends from all over the world were sharing the video (which all included subtitles in their own native language) as well as known social media pages from all over the world. Even Buzzfeed made a video entirely about the EDEKA commercial.

EDEKA could be considered lucky for the fact that now the world knows about the supermarket and maybe if I ever visit Germany I at least know where I can buy food; but we have to recognize the hard work and effort of the people behind the creative team who developed such an emotional advertisement that had such a statement message to it so much it became viral in the internet. The advertisement barely sells the idea of “Come shop at EDEKA this Christmas season” and that is what is most special about it. Companies have an extremely high cash making and branding potential online and in my point of view companies should focus on unique, non-sales pitch, statement making advertisements that people are going to want to share. Share by share, your advertisement can go a long, long way… and so can your brand!

Here is the AD if you haven’t seen it -- which, I highly doubt you haven’t!

• What are your thoughts on the EDEKA commercial as a means of advertisement?