Paddy Power has been rebuked for a new ad in which viewers are invited to “spot the stallions from the mares” by identifying strategically positioned transgendered spectators in the crowd at the Cheltenham Festival.

The brand saw it as a tongue-in-cheek spin on the classic Where’s Wally? book; in fact, change the “a” for an “i” and you’ve got a ready-made pun for their marketing strategy.  But hundreds of complainants saw it as a slur on the transgender community, and the ASA is now investigating.

While Paddy Power has been accused of reinforcing stereotypes, Survivors UK is in trouble for trying to challenge traditional views of masculinity.

In a new campaign to encourage male sexual assault victims to speak up, the charity has used a provocative image of a rugby ball punctured with a nail, with the strapline Real Men Get Raped.  The prominent outdoor advertising has been timed to coincide with the Six Nations Championship, leading bloggers to lambast the association with a specific sport, and also to question whether the reference to ‘real men’ is appropriate.

In tone and objective, the two campaigns are poles apart.  Yet in each case, an advertiser has made a calculated effort to provoke, and both brands are more than capable of backing up their approach in ways that are true to their respective brand values.

The advertisers’ responses to reputation management are certainly instructive.  SurvivorsUKhas a serious message to get across and has duly issued a statement explaining their ambition to challenge “innate assumptions about the identity of male victims.”  It is of course also possible that the choice of language that has caused the fuss – ‘real men’ – reflects the charity’s research into what its target audience is saying.

For Paddy Power, being naughty is part of its marketing strategy, and this is the latest in a string of controversial publicity stunts.  The brand has defended itself by calling the ad “simply a bit of mild-mannered fun,” and even cheekily suggested it is pro-transgender because “several members of theUKtransgender community are cast in the ad.”

Either way, the well-oiled crisis response is the final essential element in transforming the ad campaign into a full-on news story.  At heart, both of these campaigns work by getting a rise out of the public, ensuring that the ads themselves become pawns in a PR offensive to score column inches in news outlets. 

And, increasingly, the surest way to do that is to shake up the paradigm when it comes to sex.   

Traditional representations of sex are now so ubiquitous that they are no longer shocking: advertising is in a post-Wonderbra world, and nobody bats an eye at a bit of cleavage.  Brands are therefore forced to work that bit harder to make a splash to combat consumer (and media) apathy – just look at the coverage Ann Summers got from its choice of a plus-size model to front its ‘real woman’ marketing campaign. 

The latter example proves that a positive rejection of stereotype can work wonders, but as Paddy Power and Survivors UK have both proved, shock tactics guaranteed to shake the public out of complacency.  The surest way to spread the word these days is to give the bloggers something to complain about.

Regardless of whether either campaign faces official censure, they’ve done their job.  And doubtless plenty of brands will now be wondering whether they too can shock by stereotype.

Fast-forward seven months, and this Sunday sees the launch of The Sun On Sunday – not quite long enough for a birth, so let’s call it a resurrection.  Certainly, despite the name change, many expect The Sun On Sunday to be nothing less than a rebadged version of the disgraced NOTW.  It’s just as provocative a move by Rupert Murdoch as the original decision to ditch The Sun’s sister title, not least because The Sun now finds itself at the centre of a probe into allegations of journalistic corruption.

Which begs the obvious question: who is going to advertise in the inaugural Sun on Sunday?  Circulation figures are likely to be massive, as Murdoch’s friends and foes alike buy the paper out of curiosity. But will big names risk the PR backlash for being so eager to get back in this soiled bed?  There’s a distinct chance that Twitter’s liberales take time out from munching on their muesli to name and shame the Sun on Sunday’s advertisers.  You could argue that only the brave, the bold and the stupid will stick their head above the parapet.  The decision to advertise in such a hot-button platform is as much a PR matter as a media one.

On the other hand, The Sun remains, almost uniquely, a newspaper that sells – and the Sun on Sunday should easily claw back the #1 market share that the NOTW enjoyed.  This could see newspapers who were boosted by ex-NOTW readers, notably arch-rival the Sunday Mirror, see their temporary fortunes reversed.  Will it become a badge of reputation for advertisers to keep faith with new Sunday media partners, or will the lure of the Sun on Sunday’s greater reach prove too tempting

Either way, it’s going to be a fascinating couple of weeks, and proof that advertiser power still has a huge part to play in our national press.

But in the case of McDonalds, they didn’t redeem themselves and in just a fortnight, a poor decision was followed by a terrible error, which begs the question what on earth were they thinking?’

McDonald’s first mistake was to misjudge the Twitter audience (nowadays, what marketing campaign gone wrong doesn’t?). The brand adopted a series of hashtags to engage with users and, at first, with #MeetTheFarmers, all was well. But then they adopted #McDstories and things rapidly deteriorated.

The campaign might have worked if they had simply broadcast the hashtag to their followers; after all it’s reasonable to assume that people following the brand want to engage with it. But they didn’t. Instead they opted for the sponsored tweet route.

This sees a company pay for its hashtag to appear at the top of the trending topics list. Great exposure, so the theory goes, except that it worked against them. Rather than receiving examples of happy trips to the fast food chain, they received 140 character horror stories, such as the Twitterer who claimed to have found a fingernail in his burger. 

The tweets went viral and migrated from social media to the mainstream news, forcing McDonalds to pull the campaign – but by that time the damage was done.

Move on a fortnight and another social media campaign thrust the fast food chain back into the spotlight. This time, however, it was consumers who took to Facebook to protest against McDonald’s strapline for a Kansas Cityradio ad which said that ‘eating a chicken McBite is safer than petting a pit bull’.  Examples of other ‘risky pastimes’ given by McDonald’s included shaving your head, naming your son Sue or giving out your Facebook password.

Pit bull owners, who have spent decades trying to dispel the breed’s dangerous reputation, felt that the strapline played to media hysteria and took to the internet to vent their anger.  McDonald’s reacted quickly, pulled the ads and apologised to Pit Bull owners – and presumably the dogs themselves – but again negative publicity had spread far beyond than those the original ad was intended to reach generating coverage both sides of the Atlantic.

Conversely, the strapline implies that by being ‘safer than something else’ eating a Chicken McBite isn’t actually safe. McDonald’s has certainly had its fair share of criticism over the health credentials of its meals (or lack of them), most notably via the film Super Size Me, so surely this isn’t a debate it wants to resurrect?

What’s particularly odd is that this flies in the face of all the good work it had done in reputation management here in the UK.  It introduced healthy options, such as salads and fruit and listed calories on its menus. This was supported by a series of adverts showing British farmers, the A to Z of McDonald’s which focused on its CSR, environmental credentials and people, and promoting its healthy options and coffee rather than burgers and chips.

So given that McDonald’s clearly can do innovative perception changing advertising, and do it well, I go back to my original question: what on earth were they thinking?

Both have their advantages and disadvantages.  Paid media enables guaranteed placement of controlled messages that can reach large numbers of target audience.  The downside: the accumulative cost of design, artwork and media buying.

Earned media allows a degree of authority and influence that is difficult to achieve with advertising, because marketing messages are placed in trusted editorial pages – and it’s cheaper, too.  The downside: there’s no control over whether your press releases will be used. 

In today’s increasingly digital world, paid and earned media channels remain essential tactics in the online marketing mix thanks to pay per click and banner advertising, and the prevalence of portals dedicated to republishing online PR. 

Nonetheless, there is another tactic that is coming into its own as more and more of us log-on and spend our working lives online. Call it owned media, or content marketing, but this third way is increasingly the one that can make the difference to successful online marketing.

Owned media means exactly what it implies: anything you own.  In the real world, that would refer to your premises, your vehicle fleet, or your corporate newsletter.  For relatively little cost, it’s possible to use these owned items for promoting your business, for example liveried vans or signage at your workplace.

Online, thanks to the cheapness and ubiquity of virtual real estate, companies can get more for less.  The most obvious owned media, and the hub for all online marketing activities, is your website.  Yet you can add any number of spokes feeding outwards to provide further opportunities for audience engagement, such as a blog, an app, a branded Facebook page, a Twitter feed or a YouTube channel – all of which are owned media.

The use of owned media provides the best of both worlds.  On the one hand, they are inexpensive to set up and run; the biggest overhead will be the amount of time required to keep web platforms up-to-date with fresh, relevant content.  On the other hand, because you have control over owned media, you can ensure that the right messages are being heard by the right people.

Better still, thanks to the communal, shared nature of the online world, audiences must opt-in to owned media messages rather than being passive consumers (as they would be turning a page in a magazine to see an ad or a PR story).  This allows huge flexibility in the kind of marketing messages you can deliver using social media marketing or online PR.  Targeted promotions can be used to attract new Facebook fans by requiring that they ‘like’ your page.  Sharing a blog on Twitter can encourage followers to become your brand advocates as they in turn share your news on their feed.

The use of e-newsletters brings further opportunities in owned media.  Although there’s no guarantee that recipients will read every email they receive, e-shots can still be regarded as opt-in because, by law, recipients have the opportunity to opt-out at any time, suggesting that most want to read your news.  Unlike traditional direct marketing, overheads are inexpensive – there’s no print or postage costs – meaning you can combine advertising and PR into an integrated newsletter format that is bespoke to your needs. This kind of branded content marketing is becoming increasingly popular, and it’s not hard to see why.    

That said, owned media must be part of a wider marketing mix, and not the only tactic – otherwise you will be preaching to the converted.  New audiences can only become valued consumers if they know about your company in the first place, so a robust advertising and PR presence is not only desirable but essential to a strong marketing strategy.

Even the world’s biggest brands have fallen foul of trusting too much to owned media.  In 2010, Pepsi dropped its traditional Super Bowl TV spot and other advertising in favour of social media, and saw it lose its position as America’s #2 soda to Diet Coke.

Even so, the fact that Pepsi put such trusted in owned media speaks volumes about its growing influence.  Certainly, for those companies who are successfully using owned media, the nature of the conversation is changing – so why not take ownership of your online and start talking directly to consumers? 

As any marketer will tell you, half the battle is getting face-time with your audience.  Thanks to online owned media, that half of the battle has become easier, cheaper and more versatile than ever before.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the rationale. You want to feel comfortable that your marketing agency will be able to get on with the job without you having to teach them about “your” sector. You believe that, by picking somebody who already has some industry experience, you’re going to get something that will be proven to work. And maybe you think that it’ll be a little bit cheaper because research costs will be lower.

While there are obvious advantages to an agency knowing your market, consider this. Perhaps without realising it, you’re also asking for an agency who thinks it knows it all. Maybe it’s worked with your competitors, and the solution you’re likely to get will have been applied to other clients. How is that going to give you the edge on your competitors? How will it boost your sales? How does that give you value for money?

The prime quality you should be looking for in a marketing agency is that it has a broad range of experience in tactical deployment. It will have unrivalled marketing experience in applying more traditional methods that have proven their success over many years, but it is also up to speed on the latest trends that can give you a competitive edge. It has learned how to make its tactics work, where they work and the most cost effective way of making them work.

Such an agency offers the best of both worlds, hot on the skills you need and eager to prove it can apply them to your business. Let that marketing agency demonstrate its hunger by finding out about you and your vision. Let them assess your customers and competitors with an unjaundiced eye. With no prior knowledge, it will be able to discover without preconception what you’ve tried before, how you implemented it and what the results were.

If the agency can demonstrate both tactical nous and sector knowledge, so much the better – but the former quality should take priority. That way, when the agency comes back to you with a marketing plan that is targeted, cost-effective and exceeds your expectations, you’ll see it has marketing experience where it matters.

- Ella

As part of a paid tweet campaign guaranteeing appearance in the day’s trending topics, McDonald’s issued statements under the hashtag #McDStories.  It took mere minutes for the message to be spectacularly derailed as the public barraged #McDStories with personal accounts of bad experiences, the most ghoulish being one customer’s assertion that they found a fingernail in a Big Mac.

Whether true or not, these messages have gained worldwide media attention and put McDonald’s on the back foot, necessitating a hasty U-turn and the removal of the hashtag from promoted tweet placings. 

This isn’t the first time a brand has seen its social media strategy go up in smoke by misjudging the Twitterverse’s enthusiasm for freedom of expression.  Only two months ago, Quantas came unstuck when it tried to placate angry customers with the hashtag #quantasluxury.  The stated aim was to calm things after its handling of a strike leftAustralia’s transport system in paralysis.  But Quantas misjudged the mood of the public, and #quantasluxury was quickly hijacked by customers wanting to vent their frustrations.

Successful hashtags are the product of a community, sharing an idea either because something’s in the news, or has struck a chord, or is a time-wasting bit of fun. It’s therefore not surprising that, since Twitter introduced advertising, there’s been a vocal backlash against the existence of sponsored tweets, in which brands pay to climb to the top of the trends without amassing the weight of tweet traffic that comprises a truly popular trend.  Part of the problem, as McDonald’s found, is that a promoted tweet is broadcast not only to followers, who would be more likely to be receptive to the campaign, but to the general public – including hardened and vehement opponents of the brand.

Even social media stunts that work leave themselves at risk. This week, it’s been revealed that the supposed ‘hacking’ of Katie Price’s Twitter feed was a publicity stunt organised by Snickers.  A series of tweets about distinctly non-Jordan subjects such as economics was only ended after Katie Price ate a Snickers. The brand position was that only by curbing hunger (with a Snickers) can you be yourself. The unfortunate subtext, picked up by many commentators, was that it also suggests either that eating a Snickers reduces the consumer’s intelligence.

The blunt fact is that social media is a whole new ball game for marketers – especially the instant, rapid-fire world of Twitter.  The wrong message will go viral in seconds, as Ed Miliband found to his cost when predictive text put a typo into his tweet about Bob Holness.  Considering that social media has been cited in the Arab Spring of national revolutions, it seems foolhardy for anybody to try and dictate the conversation.  If Twitter can topple a government, what hope for a brand?

Twitter’s audience is media-savvy and incredibly engaged.  The Twitter platform is designed to deliver a two-way dialogue, and the best brands on Twitter understand this, building a community through usefulness (whether that means informing followers of the latest developments in their field, or delivering good service to customers) or personality (via humour or a willingness to reply to and retweet followers’ messages).

Getting a social media strategy right takes time, patience and the willingness to embrace Twitter etiquette.  The crucial thing is to dispense with hard-sell marketing techniques in favour of a softer approach – in some ways social media isn’t marketing at all but public relations, in the purest sense of the term: direct, unmediated contact.

A brand with a divisive presence, like McDonalds, or one that requires a tactful in crisis management, such as Quantas, would be advised to steer clear of hashtags entirely.  As both have found, it’s the surest, fastest and most public way to finding out that not everybody wants to be sold to.

That said, I am a compulsive viewer of British adverts. For as long as I can remember I have watched the advertisements as much as the TV programmes and I can frequently be heard uttering the words ‘have you seen the new [insert brand name] ad?’ It’s a good job I work for a PR and advertising agency because otherwise, I think most people would assume that I’m nuts.

I also take great pleasure in watching those hilarious ‘bad ad’ TV shows that occasionally air in theUK. You know the ones, the shows that feature one after another of foreign commercials that are either toe-curlingly, embarrassing or where the presenter shouts at you for five minutes or more.

Of course, not everyone shares my pastime and many of my friends and family condemn the amount of adverts on TV, in newspapers, etc. So I was delighted to hear Culture Minister Ed Vaizey speaking out in praise of the British advertising industry.  He told Brand Republic: “I see the advertising industry in this country as pioneers. I think we forget in this country we are a very creative nation but also a nation that is an early adopter.”

So I would say to the British public, take a leaf out of the minister’s book; don’t bemoan the advertising industry, but praise it instead.

Unlike some of our foreign counterparts, the British ad industry doesn’t believe their audience is stupid; they don’t assume that people will buy something because someone kept telling them to really loudly over, and over, and over again.

Instead advertisers and agencies treat the British public as they should, as sophisticated consumers who understand the market place and the adverts are designed accordingly.  The result, is creative adverts that amuse, entertain, stimulate and educate us while they try to get us to buy their products.

So next time you start to moan about that ad break, actually stop and watch – you’ll probably find that the adverts are far more creative than the programme that they’ve interrupted.

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Know What You Want – before getting an agency involved, it’s essential to know in your own mind what the parameters are for any advertising campaign.  Obviously, you don’t want to stifle creativity, but there must be a bedrock of quantifiable fact from which copywriters and designers will work.  What is the campaign designed to achieve? – an increase in market share? A sales push for a specific product?  Who is the target audience? – CEOs? Purchasers? The general public?  How will success be evaluated? – greater website traffic? Specific turnover targets?

Get The Brief Right – once you know what you want, the next step is to make sure your agency understands it, too.  A good brief should inspire the creative team but it also needs to inform, so that ad design creativity is focussed on the essentials.  It pays to distil the message into one clear focus – after all, if you throw three balls at somebody, the best they will do is to catch one, and more often than not they will miss all three.

…But Don’t Be Brief! – Note, however, that just because it’s called a brief, doesn’t mean you have to be brief. Take nothing for granted, and be thorough – preferably by offering both a written and a verbal brief.  The former provides a clearer, more concrete statement of your wishes; the latter can then be used to clarify any ambiguities and to gain a deeper understanding of the ad campaign.

First Impressions Count – Once you see the results of the marketing creatives’ work, you’re going to have an emotional reaction to what you see: either you like it, or you hate it.  But think intellectually. Don’t say the work is “good” or “bad.” The important question is whether it is “right” or “wrong” for the ad campaign.

Don’t Be A Survey Of One – Perhaps you hate the ad design concept, or feel it’s not unique enough.  “Any brand could take that approach.”  Yet, possibly, this is the right approach for your target audience; if it’s on brief, use your own market research to check how your target audience will respond.  Conversely, if you love what the agency has done but it’s off-brief, it’s worth considering whether your positive response will translate to your target audience with a little tweakin

Check And Check Again! – La Redoute’s downfall.  In this age of instant digital communication, there’s increasing pressure on agencies to produce work quickly – and if mistakes occur, then they’re easily fixed.  If anything, though, it’s even more important nowadays to be absolutely bang-on than it was in the era when correcting an error meant several days’ delay.  Given that slip-ups like this can be broadcast around the globe in seconds to millions of social media fans, brands and their agencies must employ the same validation processes used in traditional media. The more pairs of eyes that proof a job the better, and clients should be encouraged to be included in the ‘signing off’ procedure to minimise any mistakes being made.

Above all, Be Involved. Ultimately, this is your campaign and, much as the agency co-creates value, don’t be swayed by their suggestions.  By managing the campaign from initial brief to final proofing, you can ensure that advertising design is in the service of your marketing objectives, and not the other way around.

And when it goes wrong, boy does it go wrong, as Atlanta-based restaurant Boners BBQ have found to their cost.

A Boners BBQ customer, Stephanie S, posted a negative review on review site Yelp.  Good crisis management and damage control practices would usually see a restaurant in this situation seek to address the customer’s concerns, explain the restaurant’s view point and possibly offer some form of compensation. The result would be that other customers would see they take negative reviews seriously and want to keep their customers happy. In fact, a simple apology would have done the trick.

But Boners BBQ did none of these things. Instead they took to their own Facebook page and vented their frustration, immaturely insulting the customer. Worse still, they found and included a link to the customer’s own Facebook page. The post said:

“NOT WANTED!, (Stephanie S.) left waitress 0.00 tip on a $40 tab after she received a Scoutmob discount. If you see this woman in your restaurant tell her to go outside and play hide and go f**k yourself! Yelp that b***h”

Insulting your customers is never a good strategy – doing so on Facebook is probably the worst thing you can do.

As I’ve said before, social media users are savvy.  What I mean by this is they understand the power of community; they enjoy passing on ‘interesting stories’ and they certainly like to take up a cause. They are vocal and a quick glance at Boners BBQ’s Facebook page shows that this was certainly the case here.  The post quickly went viral and, while some local users leapt to the restaurant’s defence, Boners came in for some serious criticism.

As the issue migrated from social media onto the US and international news, owner Andrew Capron was forced to make a series of apologies, but that didn’t stop the comments from coming.

Ken Landgrebe from Iowa was amongst those who joined the Facebook debate, posting “…Like most small biz, they don’t get it. They don’t get it atALL. Social Media amplifies who you are. If your good, it will make you look great. If your bad, you will look like BONERS…” [nb the gramatical mistakes are his own]

And he’s hit the nail right on the head. The problem is people have become used to living their lives on social media; whereas they would once have vented their spleen in their local pub, they are now doing so on Facebook, forgetting that Facebook, especially a business page, is a public forum.

Put simply, without a clear social media strategy backed up by clear social media guidelines, mistakes like these will continue to happen. In some cases with catastrophic consequences for the businesses concerned and the long term effect this crisis will have for Boners BBQ remains to be seen.

We reckon that getting ahead in the online world is high on many business’ to do lists but, like giving up smoking or losing weight, it requires preparation, patience and persistence to see a difference.

The good news is that now is the time to take a look at your online marketing.  With long-term recovery from recession still in doubt, investing in a digital strategy is a surefire way to differentiate yourself from competitors and attract the lion’s share of the ever-increasing online audience.

Despite fierce competition in lucrative consumer markets such as retail or tourism, many industries are still not taking the importance of a digital strategy seriously.  Partly this is a result of keeping faith in traditional sales and marketing techniques that have proven their worth – but a good digital strategy will turn your website into a virtual shop front. Your sales team will still be needed to convert interested visitors into customers.

Partly, it’s simply a lack of understanding about how to get ahead in the online world. Many fear that it would involve spending huge sums of money to become a digital giant like Amazon. The truth is that, in emerging online markets, not only can you establish yourself as the market leader cost-effectively, but as an added bonus your competitors will be forced to pay more to play catch-up.

The rules of best practice online are surprisingly simple.  Essentially, there are only two aspects of your online business you need to get right: on-site and off-site.  But it’s called a digital strategy for a reason, so start getting strategic.

On-site

- Research your market – including what competitors do! – in order to determine the keywords that your target audience will type into search engines into Google. 

- Build your website around these keywords in order to attract organic search traffic through search engine optimisation. The home page should focus on the main product or service you offer, while other pages focus on specific aspects of your range.

- Aim wide – a website is an incredibly cost-efficient piece of real estate.  Create as many pages as you need to cover your entire business.  Each unique URL on your website is a potential landing page for new business.

- Aim deep – online, content is king. A reasonable depth of description will let search engines know you mean business… but not too much. The trick to being found for the correct keyword is to ensure that the density is right. Think of your webpage as a cake, and the keyword has the sugar.  Too little, and the cake will be bland; too much, and you’ll give people a headache. Get the balance right, and your visitors will want to try more.

Off-site

- Create as many paths to your digital home as possible.  Link building not only provides your audience with increased opportunity to find you, but it also an important means by which Google and other search engines assess the relevance of your website.  Note, however, that quality matters as much as quantity, so it isn’t simply about getting as many links as possible – contrary to what some SEO companies would like you to believe.  Opt for a strategic approach, not a scattershot one, and prioritise links from reputable sites that will enhance your profile through targeted article writing.  

- Become the voice of your industry. Online newspapers and magazines require reliable, interesting content, so make online PR work for you by seeding keywords into your news and linking press releases to relevant pages of your website.  Get connected via social media marketing. Or create your own custom news content to deliver fresh headlines to your industry every day.

- Use Pay Per Click advertising to support your digital strategy by gaining an immediate foothold while you are developing organic traffic, or to test the click through rate and conversion value of your chosen keywords.

Online success won’t happen overnight, but if adopt these measures you can start 2012 with the right attitude.  All you’ll need then is the patience and determination to stick to your resolution, and make a digital marketing strategy work for your business.