#canneslions bronze winner for Bayer makes fun of consent

I first saw this ad on Twitter, shared by marketer Cindy Gallop, with the comment "Don't use this to sell aspirin, male-dominated ad industry, & don't award it, male-dominated juries. #canneslions"

Seriously. I'm a male Creative Director in this industry, and I think it's awful.

The ad is part of a series by AlmapBBDO of Brazil for Bayer. It won a Bronze Lion at Cannes 2016 in the Outdoor category.

The other two in the winning entry were a little less explicit:

These are part of a over-arching campaign that describes situations that might give the listener/victim a headache. They play all kinds of stereotypes about ex-wives and protective fathers, and are mostly harmless.

But not "'Don't worry, babe, I'm not filming this'.mov"

I see a lot of regressive ads coming out of Brazil, and I'm used to a certain kind of humour in them. But this one, translated into English for an international awards show, is really bad timing for a joke about non-consensual filming of sex.

Yeah, yeah. Call me an "SJW" if you want. But I'm trying to raise a son into a man who doesn't exploit and abuse women. The idea of filming and possibly sharing an intimate sex tape of a woman without her consent is just not funny anymore. It's the kind of bro-attitude that we should be denormalizing, rather than normalizing, along with jokes about other kinds of sexual violation.

Bayer, BBDO, and Cannes should do better than this. It's 20-effing-16.

UPDATE: Cindy Gallop added, via Facebook, some further context as to why this ad's timing is so bad.

UPDATE 2: Adweek reports that BBDO global creative chief David Lubars, who stated: "I learned last night that one of our very own agencies had a pretty scammy ad in the festival, and it won a Lion, I told them to return it. Because I don't want that kind of Lion. BBDO doesn't want that kind of Lion."

It turned out that the sexism was one thing, but what the global ad giant couldn't stand was that AlmapBBDO had paid for their own media placement. Even though Bayer had signed off on the ad, the agency paying to make it official is against the rules.

Caffeinated Aspirin — for prison rape?

The assumption that, in prison, men force other men into sex is a common one. One person I know who has actually done (light) time told me that it's something nobody dares joke about behind bars. In the world of popular culture, however, it's one rape joke that seems to persist in "polite" circles.

It's subtly implied, in this ad from Brazil's Almap BBDO, part of a campaign for Cafiaspirina, Bayer's caffeinated headache pill marketed in Latin America. But even without the underlying violent implication the homophobia still makes my head hurt.

See the whole campaign at The Drum.

Is Buyral Marketing good CSR?

I just made up that term. I needed something to describe the proliferation of campaigns that buy social spread by promising to donate for each "like" or "RT" received.

Here's today's example:

"Zinc Saves Lives" is the corporate social responsibility brand of Teck Resources, a mining company that specializes in copper, coal and zinc. So by retweeting this post, you're acting as a free social media promoter for the mining company, as well as potentially saving a child's life.

When I see these campaigns, I can't help but by cynical. That's because I know how they work.

You see, most big corporations have a social responsibility strategy, both to enhance their brand and to earn social licence (that is, community support) in the regions in which they operate. These activities have a set budget, a chunk of which is earmarked for conspicuous corporate giving to a relevant cause.

In the case of Tek, it takes the form of "We Day":



You can see the actual donation budget if you look at the fine print:

Teck will donate CAD$0.50 for every retweet of the designated We Day tweet, up to a maximum total for each We Day event (CAD$20,000 for Toronto, CAD$20,000 for Vancouver, CAD$10,000 for Alberta, CAD$5,000 for Montreal and CAD$5,000 for Ottawa). The total donation from Teck for the entire campaign is capped at CAD$60,000.

So, Tek has budgeted a $60,000 gift to "Zinc Saves Kids, an initiative of the International Zinc Association in support of UNICEF." But instead of just giving their trade association the money (to enhance its reputation, too) Tek is emotionally blackmailing Twitter slacktivists to do their advertising for them — for free. Instead of the limited PR they get for just handing over a lump sum, they engage large numbers of social media do-gooders to spread their goodwill all over the internet.

Here's another example of buyral marketing, from the pharmaceutical industry (via Osocio):

In this case, a simple repinning of the image gets a hefty $10 donation to the Breast Cancer Society of Canada. All you have to do is help Bayer spread their one-a-day brand all over Pinterest.

And once again, there is a maximum. The donation cap is $30,000.

This isn't a particularly bad thing. Charities need private donations, and people love to feel like they're saving the world. But people need to know what they're being asked to do, and by who.

Are you concerned with the ethics of buyral marketing? Add your comment below.