Advertising can tell you about a product or a service.
A few really effective ads can get stuck in your head, or turn into memes or catchphrases.
A very small number of them go so wrong that there’s a backlash against them.
Back in 1994, an ad campaign for a car company somehow misjudged its ad campaign so badly that the whole effort landed the company in court.
This was an ad campaign for the Fiat Cinquecento, which was just about to have a big rollout in Spain.
The company was marketing the car toward women drivers, and so an ad agency suggested a direct mail campaign.
Except these mailings didn’t look like ads.
They were unmarked envelopes containing anonymous letters on pink paper.
They described how they had seen the recipient on the street and “I saw you looking at me with interest.”
The letter continued: “I only have to be with you a few minutes and, even if it doesn’t work between us, I promise you won’t forget our experience together.”
The idea was that the second letter would reveal that this special connection was between the woman and the new car.
But they never made it to the second letter.
Because many of the women who got these letters thought they had been sent by a person, maybe some kind of weird stalker who was following them around and watching their every move.
A few of the women went to the police, who investigated and discovered the letters were part of a marketing campaign that was clearly not generating the kind of buzz the carmaker wanted.
The High Court in the Spanish city of Zaragoza issued a mostly symbolic fine of 15,000 pesetas, or a little over 100 bucks in 1994 money, for ads that were “in the worst possible taste, with highly erotic content.”
The court further ordered the company to pay 140,000 pesetas to a woman who had gone to court over the letters.
Probably best for car companies to just do videos of their cars racing past mountains or whatever with Will Arnett or John Cena narrating.
Like, stay in your lane!
The movie It’s A Wonderful Life is a good and wholesome holiday classic now, but its signature song, “Buffalo Gals,” not so much.
According to BuffaloStreets.com, it’s about Buffalo, New York’s Canal Street, which at one time was notorious for its nightclubs and brothels featuring ladies quote “of easy virtue.”
That doesn’t sound much like Bedford Falls, but the gals would’ve fit in nicely in Pottersville!
Fiat fined for sexist mail-shots (The Independent)
Canal Street, Buffalo – “The Wickedest Street in the World” (BuffaloStreets.com)
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Photo by Rudolf Stricker – Own work, Attribution, via Wikicommons
