MARKETING | BUSINESS
Social Media Backlash Forced Car Company to Pull Racist Advert
How a Nazi founded car company screwed up in 2020
An article written by Sean last month highlighted a marketing campaign that Hoover launched in the early 90s, in which Sean described a catastrophic marketing failure.
“The promotion: Buy a vacuum cleaner or washing machine worth at least £100 (~$240 today’s dollars) and you get two free plane tickets to Europe or America.” — Sean Kernan
What was the impact? “Hoover gave free flights to 220,000 customers over the following six years.”
But that was almost three decades ago.
This week global car manufacturer Volkswagen, originally founded under the Nazi regime, pulled an advert due to its racist theme.
The ad was produced to promote the new VW Golf.
Apology
Volkswagen, an international player in the car market, apologized for what it called ‘tasteless’ advertisement. Yet the decision to pull the ad only happened as a result of a backlash on social media.
This is not this first time VW has been in hot water in recent years.
Defeat devices were banned by the EPA decades ago. In 1995, GM was fined $11 million for switching off the carbon monoxide controls in a vehicle when the air conditioning was on to manipulate results.
VW used similar software to put a new spin on this old scam.
VW used defeat devices in a more subtle fashion. A more insidious effort by the German carmaker. Their engineers knew that by just turning on and of the air conditioner they too could manipulate the EPA criteria, producing a set of results that mirrors the emissions set by the EPA.
The Advert
So why does this advert seem racist? Because it is.
In the short ten-second advert below, posted by VW on Social Media, you can see a giant-sized white hand pushing a black man away from a car, a new Volkswagen Golf.
The hand doesn’t stop there. It then flicks the same man into an adjacent doorway on the street beside the hideous yellow car.
The German carmaker slogan fades into view — ‘Der Neue Golf’, which translates into ‘The New Golf’ — at one point the mixed up letters momentarily spell out the n-word in German.
Also, the writing over the doorway is written in French — Petit Colon — which I understand translates into ‘Little Colony’.
Who at VW approved this advert?
Considering the brand's history this will surely trigger an unease across the conscious consumer around the world.
The efforts made by VW to position the brand to support diversity, and stand-up against all forms of racism and discrimination have been undermined in just 10 seconds.
Without a doubt, this advert has embarrassingly backfired, big time. How it made it into the public domain in the first place raises questions about the brands' true identity.
This is the one question that consumers will be asking now — who is VW?
Will this marketing mistake have the same impact on VW as Hoovers biblical error almost 30 years ago? Unlikely, but watch this space.
