Advertisers are coming up with a lot that is REALLY good and really...umm...not so good. This one (French, of course) is hilarious and self-mocking. It was also banned, in the US. Mais oui: The Hedgehog Trilogy.
As for these next ads...how can I say it? They're part of Liberty Mutua'ls Responsibility campaign. Liberty Mutual, and their marketing agency Hill Holiday, concocted the “Responsibility” campaign, as in ethical responsibility not, say, calling customers back on time. (In the interests of full disclosure, I briefly consulted on the campaign several years back.)
The campaign provides ample examples of responsibility. During the last election, for example, one ad showed a disabled person pushing her wheelchair through rain, traffic and other barriers to get to the voting booth. Another showed an elderly African American man of seemingly modest means who lost his wallet and – lo and behold – a young African American man who called to return it.
Examples of responsibility? Maybe, but these ads are also ruthlessly condescending. Are we expected to think the younger black man would normally dash off with the wallet and spend the proceeds on heroin? Or that disabled woman would normally ignore her duty as a citizen, what with the wheelchair and all. Naturally, they have the “Responsibility Project” with, yes, a social network where people discuss their thoughts on such morally provocative issues as the octuplets.
Still, I don’t get it. What does all this have to do with Liberty Mutual? The company, while prompting others to be responsible, doesn’t show how they’re responsible. They do take lots of credit, though. The Hill Holliday Web site claims: “It all began with a single commercial that gave voice to an entire movement. It prompted thousands of people to start thinking and talking about responsibility, to celebrate the positive things in their lives and the world around them…” Wow! An insurance company did all that!
Aside from all that, I find it tasteless, to say the least, for a company (95 on the Fortune 100 list) to use ethical and deeply serious matters to make a buck. Actually, many bucks!
