As you will know, Dear Reader, our day job is, as often as not, in the advertising business, hence our abnormal, (some would say mildly obsessional), fascination with the egregious mistakes that pepper our industry.
You can find umpteen examples, some very funny, by searching for “F***” in the search box top left of this page.
This latest example, which greeted commuters at Euston Station in London yesterday, takes the cake. It is funny, in a sort of gut-wrenching embarrassing way.
We think we’ll stick with the commute, thanks. OK, the ad has been withdrawn by British Airways with apologies that it “was not appropriate at this time”. But let’s be clear here, these things don’t take place overnight. The media is booked weeks in advance. The artwork (this is a video installation) is created weeks in advance
At no time until the public started complaining via social media did anyone in the ad agency or the client’s media buyers or the client’s marketing department or, for that matter, the station owners who were selling the ad space, suggest that this ad was just the teensy-weeniest bit stupid, not to say breathtakingly insensitive, given that the Indian Ocean is the widely expected graveyard for the recent disappeared Malaysian Airlines flight that has led every news bulletin in the world for two weeks.
Two words. Sack. Someone.
Who would have thought an airline could make Qantas look competent? Wonders never cease.
Well, This Is What I Think 