The most scandalous advertising campaigns
The most striking cases of confrontation between believers and marketing specialists.
Scandalous and offensive advertising is a separate area of marketing, and it is not surprising that religious feelings are sometimes targeted. Sometimes it is done intentionally, and sometimes a company just accidentally offends a religious image. However, as practice shows, believers don't care, and even fairly harmless cases can cause a storm of indignation and lead to the closure of advertising projects. Companies themselves do not suffer too much from this - by that time, as a rule, advertising has managed to fulfil its objectives. And even exceed them due to the scandal.
Pope and imam kiss by Benetton
It is no surprise that Benetton became the client of the most scandalous advert. This has long been part of their strategy. Throughout its history, Benetton has "offended" the feelings of believers as much as it could - in 1992, for example, it released a poster with a kissing priest and a nun. But it turns out that this kiss was not the last and not the most impressive.
In 2011, another Benetton UNHATE campaign ("No hatred") included several posters with kisses of the "opposing sides". In particular, Obama used Photoshop to put his lips to those of Chinese leader Hu Jintao and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and the most controversial poster depicted a kiss between Pope Benedict XVI and Egyptian Imam Ahmed al-Tayyib. Almost all of the "kissers" were unhappy, but the Vatican went the furthest, announcing its intention to sue. Ahmed al-Tayyib was the only hero of the advertising campaign who ignored it, perhaps for good reason - neither the fight against the "Judaisation of Jerusalem" nor the boycott of the Catholic Church brought him such fame as this unfortunate kiss.
In the end, everything worked out: the incident was resolved after a public apology from the company and a donation, the amount of which was not disclosed. All in all, the church received both repentance and an offering, and Benetton got another advertising breakthrough. It's even scary to imagine who will kiss next.
Pregnant nun by Antonio Federici
Once again, advertisers have displeased the religious British. This time it was a small Italian ice cream manufacturer with an advertising campaign called "Ice cream is our religion". Several variants of the advert were produced: one depicted a nun and a priest about to kiss (ring a bell?), the other two priests, also ready to kiss. However, the most offensive, in the opinion of the Catholic Church, was the advert featuring a pregnant nun eating ice cream. The British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned these posters as offensive to the sensibilities of believers, despite the fact that only ten people complained about this advert.
Advert with Zeus, Jesus and atheist offends Australian believers
One of Australia's largest meat companies has released a video depicting a feast with Jesus Christ, the god Ganesha, Zeus, Thor, Scientology founder Ron Hubbard and others. According to the story, they came to visit an atheist to eat fresh lamb. In one of the episodes, the god Ganesha utters a phrase that outraged Hindus: "This is meat that we can all eat."
Connecting to Jesus by Jucom
The Roman Catholic Church of Latvia was outraged by an advertisement by the local Internet provider Jucom with the slogan: "The Internet, like God, is one, and there are many ways to connect to Him!" The advertising print depicted the famous Brazilian statue of Christ the Redeemer with a halo in the form of a symbol "@", the dome of an Orthodox church and the facade of a Gothic cathedral. The call was to choose the "best connection" based on the principle of one window. The church justified its outrage by saying that the advert was based on the old sin of human attempts to become one with God.
