August 9 was National Women's Day in South Africa, and Bic SA's social media team tried to share an empowering captioned image. The only problem was, it wasn't really empowering at all.
Reaction was swift and sharp, including this hack:
Hi everyone. Let’s start out by saying we’re incredibly sorry for offending everybody - that was never our intention, but we completely understand where we’ve gone wrong. This post should never have gone out. The feedback you have given us will help us ensure that something like this will never happen again, and we appreciate that.
It still shouldn't have happened in the first place, but at least it opens a helpful conversation. Especially for an international brand with a bad history of gender stereotyping.
What the hell is going on with Bic pens? I posted earlier this week about the Canadian ad they pulled of its Asian stereotypes and insensitivity towards condemned prisoners.
Yeah, products that target gender stereotypes are nothing new, but mocking this particular one became a kind of sport for amateur feminist wits on Amazon, which caused the hilarious fail to go viral.
Here's an example:
Someone has answered my gentle prayers and FINALLY designed a pen that I can use all month long! I use it when I'm swimming, riding a horse, walking on the beach and doing yoga. It's comfortable, leak-proof, non-slip and it makes me feel so feminine and pretty! Since I've begun using these pens, men have found me more attractive and approchable. It has given me soft skin and manageable hair and it has really given me the self-esteem I needed to start a book club and flirt with the bag-boy at my local market. My drawings of kittens and ponies have improved, and now that I'm writing my last name hyphenated with the Robert Pattinson's last name, I really believe he may some day marry me! I'm positively giddy. Those smart men in marketing have come up with a pen that my lady parts can really identify with.
Where has this pen been all my life???
Now, to add fuel to the fire, they've released a TV campaign:
Hey, at least people are talking about these issues now.
Obviously inspired by the culturally-charged humour of Sacha Baron Cohen, some creatives at CP+B developed this funny little skit for Bic Canada.
You can see the gag coming, but in ad terms it helps to underscore the product benefit of Bic pens' presumed reliability (versus the crap he uses). It's a solid piece of work.
The problem is, branded advertising is not comedy. When Baron Cohen parodies Kazakhs, Austrians, homosexuals, North Africans or the British underclass for purposes of lampooning prejudice, it is art. Silly, dick joke, art at times. But the only brand he represents is his own.
This is where advertisers need to tread carefully. A "banned" ad has great potential for viral takeoff. But as more and more people see the agency's skit (which is mostly good for their brand) the more people are exposed to the client's brand in a negative context.
Bic Canada began hearing from consumers who were offended by the ad almost immediately, and by Tuesday afternoon, the day after its launch, had decided to pull it off the air. As of Thursday afternoon, it had received 48 e-mails complaining about the commercial.
Most of those messages mentioned the fact that the viewers were offended by the racial tone of the ads. Complaints included descriptions of the ad as being “racist,” “insensitive” and “tasteless.”
A fine-print disclaimer at the beginning of the ad specifies that the setting is a “fictitious country,” but this did not mollify viewers.
“People just found it offensive,” said company spokesperson Linda Kwong. “...We’re trying to do the right thing.”
Bic Canada announced the retraction on Thursday, once it was sure the commercial had been pulled from all of its TV channels.
Here's the problem: we live in a multicultural society. Other cultures are no longer impersonal caricatures for our arrogant amusement. They are our friends, neighbours, coworkers — and customers.
Parodying Asian dictatorship (obviously a shot at North Korea) with a fictitious language was bound to offend people. As a bonus, they make light of the human rights abuses that organizations like Amnesty International fight so hard to get people mobilized to stop.
Just dumb, guys. Do your sketch comedy on your own time and dime, where you can answer for your own choices. Bic has pens to sell, and PR fires to put out.
