Earlier this year General Motors took the remarkably courageous step (News.com) of letting users create ads for its new SUV the Chevy Tahoe. Predictably, environmentalists capitalised on the opportunity (News.com) to slam the impact of the new vehicle on global warming.
But then GM took an unexpected tack - it let them get on with it, merely commenting that "there are many different opinions and many different people, and we recognise that".
Commentators were bemused by GM's approach, the consumer evangelists calling it "doomed". Buy why doomed? The people who slammed the SUV, and the people receptive to that message, were not GM's potential customer-base anyway - it's not as if SUV-buyers are unaware of the impact of their cars. They just don't give a damn. This was the essence of an open dialogue about the brand based on the merits of the product, letting the fans whoop and the detractors decry.
Virgin's response (Guardian) to the ads generated by b3ta's audience for its Virgin Money brand has been rather less adult and constructive, pulling the contest on grounds that ads featuring Richard Branson were "a little bit illegal". (What does "a little bit illegal" even mean?) So take down the ads that were of debatable legality and let the conversation go on. People were clearly having fun playing with the brand. B3ta's audience was in any case not a sensible starting point if the campaign creators were looking for reverence. Unlike GM, who let actually negative comment about the brand go on uncensored, Virgin has given up at the first conversational hurdle - a little light mockery. A moment's thought could have predicted this outcome. One might have hoped for a modicum more planning before putting a major brand up for public debate, but more importantly a more robust response to some basically good-natured ribaldry.
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