Super Bowl is over, but some side effects are still going on.
Commercials are hot
issues for most Super Bowls. Lots of corporations want to take advantage of it.
But some companies, unfortunately, heading to the wrong direction.
The Audi
commercial in Super Bowl became one of the most controversial commercials which
drew a stream of outright disgust. Not only because it stands a discussion
about gender inequalities, but also it includes stereotype of fat shaming,
debatable political standpoint, and some other sensitive subjects.
The violent
controversy gives us something to wonder: how fine is the line between using
groundswell appropriately and using groundswell in a totally wrong way? How
many corporations participate in groundswell just because they believe it is the right
thing to do?
It was mentioned
in the book that there are no specific strategies or technologies for reaching the
ultimate objective, which explains why diverse attempts were being tried. We
believe a considerable portion of cooperations are holding the idea that “doing something is better
than doing nothing”. That may be the reason for this commercial coming out: Audi is afraid that their commercial will be overwhelmed by others in Super Bowl. Anyway, negative
attention is better than no attention. So maybe that is what they did for getting
attention, which leads to totally different responses and critical effects.
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Obviously, numerous people felt they were offended by this commercial.
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It leads to the
key point of groundswell: relationship, not the technologies. Audi forgets
to build the effective relationship between their customers. The relationship
between them should be purely buyer-seller, but this
commercial seems to be a missionary and paid less attention to their merchandises. Also, Audi also made a mistake with orientating their customers. The prior survey should be done more precisely to target their potential customers.
No matter this
commercial does with purposes or just a decision mistake, we all have seen the
remarkable power of groundswell. Based on the “POST” method, Audi should
reconsider their customer’s tendencies, find a stronger definition of
objectives and think through their strategies once again. No matter how severe the competition is, excellent enterprise images and long-term society impacts are the top priority. Because Super Bowl is over, but groundswell will always be there.
Hi Yiming,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post! My first comment, I just wanted to let you know that the images of the comments were difficult to read, so maybe in the future look into enlarging those so that your audience can see what you shared! I am going to have to disagree with you about Audi and the relationship. It is interesting because the posts I saw were all positive posts about Audi and the commercial. So not all of the comments were negative. I am not sure about the overwhelming majority, but I do know that there was positive feedback and the groundswell was clearly at work. You can see just how many times the video was aired. I think that with everything this country has gone through recently, a majority of consumers are in fact looking at the companies they support to make political statements. When they make those statements, the groundswell will work to either support their option or show the company, no way. Nikala's example of Uber is an example of the groundswell saying no way do they support it. Now Uber knows, that their following does not agree with them and they had to fix it. Audi's commercial was much different than the case with Uber, because I believe it was less political, and just more about the never ending fight of equality (which yes I guess is in some ways political). I think my post may end up being confusing. But, ultimately, I think the groundswell showed a lot of positives for Audi. People were talking about the commercial, and posting about it too. There will always be a few opposers (because it's impossible to make everyone happy), but I think Audi did a good job of "going political" and by doing so the groundswell supported them by sharing and reposting.
Hi Nikki,
DeleteThanks for your reply and suggestion! I guess it is the interesting part of groundswell that people will learn some issues from different perspectives. Of course, some support comments are there but when I saw this commercial firstly I noticed so many negative comments as top comments and the numbers of dislike are shocking. But no matter what kind of responses they get, we cannot deny they get much attention. What am I thinking is that is this kind of controversies really helps with companies in a beneficial way? Like really helps them with selling more cars or just develops a discussion but has nothing to do with their revenue? Or maybe they should more focus on the car but not conduct some sensitive subjects which lead to endless discussion because this strategy seems kind of dangerous.
Hi Yiming!
ReplyDeleteWow, this post was very interesting and shocking to me. In my mind, equal pay for equal work should be a human rights thing, not a political thing. Honestly it really upsets me that people would not buy an Audi because they support fair labor laws and equality. However, I think for you and other international students it is controversies like these that can help show just how divided our country is at the moment. As Nikki stated about my post, there are people on both sides of the isle all over the place. I think with situations like this though, the loudest people always get the most attention, so I bet there were more people who liked the add than didn't, but didn't feel the need to go online and bash it.
Hi Nikala,
DeleteThanks for sharing! Honestly, I did not feel anything particular about this commercial at the first place. But some comments were saying that it seems like Audi intentionally depreciate women's place in real life in order to show their support to women. I did not feel it is a political commercial because gender is always a sensitive subject all over the world and that is the reason for causing discussion. No matter support or opposition, Audi has earned attention and that is exactly the influence of groundswell.
Hi Yiming,
ReplyDeleteVery good post. Had I not seen your post prior to watching this ad, I would have assumed that this ad sends an empowering message to young girls. Yes, girls can drive faster, and do a lot of other things better than boys including math. But it seems like everything has become political these days. I wonder if the fat kid people are referring to as the bad guy is DJT? Couldn't resist it. Hey, but he turned out to be a winner, right? TBD
Thanks, Sharmarke. Yeah, things get so political these days and sometimes these sensitive conversations will lead a totally different direction. Sorry that I do not know the meaning of "DJT", but if you mean who the fat kid people are referring to, it is the little guy in a red shirt who shows up in 0:04 and he was beaten by the little girl. :)
DeleteI really enjoyed this post! I hadn't seen this commercial and you raise of good question: "how fine is the line between using groundswell appropriately and using groundswell in a totally wrong way?" I think that is the fascinating thing about social media and the groundswell - you can't truly predict the outcome. The corporations and the stakeholders all get to watch it unravel together. I think Audi's commercial makes a simple but powerful statement that they are committed to equality in their company and if that is something that makes social media users upset, well, too bad. I think it was well done.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Meaghan. I strongly agree with your words and yes you can't truly predict the outcome. I guess maybe AUDI trying to be supportive but they did not expect that some people will feel offended. Or they can just avoid this kind of object just to "use groundswell appropriately"? But it may causes the outcome that they will lose some attention. Needs more time to find out.
DeleteHi Yiming,
ReplyDeleteI haven't watched this commercial before, but I'm kind of like it. Just like Sharmarke said, it sends an empowering message to young girls. This ad gives me a strong feeling that Audi fights for equality. I think an attractive feature of groundswell is that no matter how meticulous you are, there always be some negative voices. But it's important to control the volume of that negative voice.
Thanks, Zijun. You made a really good point that "no matter how meticulous you are, there always be some negative voices". Just like Nikki said, it's impossible to make everyone happy, so maybe it is the inevitable outcome in groundswell. But just like you said, the solutions are important. Just like what DOVE did, Audi also should concentrate more on dealing with the relationships with costumers.
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