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The ad from hell
Last fall, when Only for Feet CEO Harold Ruttenberg learned his company had nailed down a coveted time slot for a third-quarter Super Bowl ad, the sneaker mogul could hardly contain his jubilation. Though a public corporation with over $775 million in annual sales, ranked No. 6 in Fortune magazine recent list of Fastest Growing Companies, Just for Feet had nothing you've seen prior tried its hand at national brand advertising. specialize in selling shoes, not commercials, Ruttenberg says. had never before created hoopla. Now, here would be a opportunity to burnish Just for Feet corporate reputation and brand image on a national scale. He says he couldn wait to inform viewers about the footwear chain friendly atmosphere, its neighborliness, its reputation for social responsibility. a family kind of retailer that caters to a family atmosphere, he says. got shoes we sell. We've got a public that people love. It an extremely dynamic atmosphere we have in our stores. Here was an opportunity to tell our story to the largest audience in the world. hoopla, as Ruttenberg would soon learn, didn come cheap. Ruttenberg thought the cost was worthwhile. Because he first viewed it, the ad would bring about a groundswell of public goodwill. i was looking to do was to start to build our brand, he told me. we wanted was for individuals to see this and say, that was terrific. Now we customers of yours. We want to shop with you. McBride, creative director at Wieden, Kennedy and lead creative about the Nike account, remembers his reaction about the evening of Jan. 31, when he first saw the needed for Feet ad. minute I saw it, I immediately went shit, and that i went, can embark upon. I just couldn think that they'd carried this out. The men drive ahead to offer the runner a mug of water laced with a knockout drug. The runner drinks the water, and immediately collapses down, unconscious. As they is passed out, the white men force a pair of Nikes on his feet. When the runner awakens,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], he sees the sneakers and begins shouting and flailing. No! he cries. Then scrambles to his feet and goes out, still trying to shake the shoes from his feet.
Chuck McBride wasn the only individual who hated the ad. insensitive, declared Stuart Elliott in the New York Times. Writing in Advertising Age, Bob Garfield called the ad culturally imperialist, and in all likelihood racist. Have these folks lost their marbles? The Des Moines Register, expressing incredulity at the fact that for Feet would spend huge amount of money to generate something that makes Denny and Texaco seem like abolitionists, suggested a reputation change for the athletic footwear chain: for Racists. As punishment, the paper suggested in an editorial, ad agency who signed off about the commercial should be required to think of a campaign that shows the worst about their very own cultures. They should be drenched inside a bucket of water, made to fall on their backs, and shackled. Ruttenberg had a better idea. On March 15, 1999, Just for Feet sued Saatchi and Saatchi for $10 million, arguing the Super Bowl commercial am bad it amounted to advertising malpractice. Saatchi assured Just for Feet that the commercial Saatchi conceived and produced could be well received through the public, reads the complaint, filed in federal district court in Birmingham, Ala. as a direct results of Saatchi appallingly unacceptable and shockingly unprofessional performance, Only for Feet favorable reputation originates under attack, its reputation has suffered, and it has been subjected to the entirely unfounded and unintended public perception that it is a racist or racially insensitive company. Far from glorifying the company role in advancing civilization and promoting social betterment, Just for Feet argues, the ad produces the impression the footwear retailer is culturally insensitive and condescending, [and] promotes drugs. This impression, the company states in the complaint, unlike the deepest held principles of Only for Feet, which has always sought to advertise racial harmony, finds racism abhorrent, and condemns drug use. consternation is understandable. What less understandable is why he allow the spot out the door in the first place, given his claim that he knew all along it had been odious. [Saatchi] first came to Birmingham and showed it to us, we were flabbergasted, he told me. were frankly type of horrified. But Saatchi Saatchi assured us this was a good thing they had ever done. Ruttenberg says he tried hard to swallow his misgivings. didn want anything controversial, he says. a family-oriented company. We make our stores a fun spot to shop. What we wanted would be a fun kind of ad. Something of that nature little Mexican dog [referring to some Wendy's ad having a chihuahua]. That will happen to be fine. is suing Saatchi Saatchi while he says it badgered him into buying an advertisement he hated, an ad that ran against his will and also over his objections, before a global audience of 127 million viewers. spent a lot of money of money that does not even in this lawsuit when preparing for this commercial, he fumes. took out advertisements. We gave away a lot more than $1 million of product. Then your ad runs. And also you would would not believe the deluge of comments made relating to this company. I couldn sleep for any solid month. Also it all because of this option who said they knew everything. bottom line, he says, is the fact that said I was told that I was told that they knew better. And we are prepared to swear that under oath. a judge struck down Saatchi motion for dismissal, and ordered the suit to visit forward. (Just for Feet is also suing Fox, the network that carried the Super Bowl, for running the ad throughout the often less-viewed fourth quarter instead of the third. On the face from it, this action appears to be to become a rerun of the old joke in which one old lady complains about how exactly bad your meals are, and her friend chimes in And such small portions! except for the fact that Only for Feet had invested substantially in promotions tailored for viewers watching the 3rd quarter.) As the discovery process gets arrived, with lawyers for the footwear chain drawing up witness lists and subpoenas, the lawsuit that is apparently unprecedented is being monitored by advertising executives who say it's the potential to create in regards to a sea alternation in the. After all, based on its legal complaint, Only for Feet is suing Saatchi not just for exposing the organization to charges of racism, however for creating an ad that was and by the media and the advertising industry. like these send chills up the spine of agency creatives,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], who have always been accustomed to cutting themselves a wide berth. at Wieden, we have a saying called Freedom to Fail, says Chuck McBride of Wieden Kennedy. wish to give everyone the freedom to fail. And I think that a good way to consider advertising. It hard to come up with something truly great unless it walks that precarious type of, no, could it be really horrible? I'd feel gun-shy if I knew that every time I did something really horrible,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], I find themselves in court. Just for Feet lawyers respond the Super Bowl ad was no run-of-the-mill clunker but a shocking political and cultural gaffe that triggered a company crisis. not just referring to a commercial that fell just a little flat, says Robert Trezinsky of the Ny lawyer Thatcher, Proffit Wood, who combined with the Birmingham firm of Sirote and Permutt is litigating the case just for for Feet. referring to exposing a customer to some very serious allegations. An agency includes a duty to the client to think about these issues. no court has yet spelled out what constitutes malpractice in advertising, Trezinski says that the concentration of the wrath aroused through the ad makes it an ideal test case. you hire a marketing professional, you assume they're going to have the expertise to actually promote what you're advertising, he says. once they come up with an ad that doesn't promote, but instead, shocks the conscience, then the standards of that profession have clearly been breached. And we proceed to reveal that in the court. no one from Saatchi would talk on the record, the essence of its defense could be gleaned from Saatchi response to Just for Feet complaint. The thrust of Saatchi defense seems to be that it can be sued for violating professional standards in a field which has none. imposition of the punitive damage award even without the explicit, particularized guidelines and standards is highly unfair, Saatchi lawyers write. award produced in the absence of such guidelines and standards may be grossly excessive, disproportionate, arbitrary,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and irrational. on the condition of anonymity, a Saatchi Saatchi employee denied any racist predilections, and insisted the ad had served its purpose. we were trying to say subliminally is: here's this athletic shoe retailer, who's in both your community now, or perhaps is coming to your community, the worker says. fundamentally of those people is really a passion for feet, a love for obtaining the right shoes about the right feet. Even going to the stage where perhaps they might go too far. Asked whether it was a good idea to identify that passion with a pack of white commandos who hunt down and drug a barefoot black runner, the worker groaned. the way across the line, multi-racial casting was adopted, he explained. of the men within the Humvee is actually an African-American. And we also were built with a Hispanic woman The problem is that when [the ad] goes by in 30 seconds, you don necessarily observe that there is an African-American. What of the Hispanic woman? Hispanic woman, unfortunately, is quite light-skinned. Also it exceedingly difficult to tell she a woman. course, one might reason that, considering the hair-trigger racial semiotics involved, even having a multicultural posse seeking out a black man isn likely to cut it. But the strange case of Only for Feet vs. Saatchi Saatchi is much more than the usual cautionary parable about identity politics. Additionally, it raises the question of what it means to commit advertising malpractice inside a medium (along with a culture) that increasingly is honored on exceeding expectations, defying norms and, yes, shocking the conscience which often reserves its most glittering laurels for ads that deliver a gratuitous jolt to the viewer.
love cheeky humor that walks the fine line of excellent taste, says Brian O chairman and chief creative officer of Goldberg, Moser, O in Bay area. it strong enough and smart enough and funny enough, there no question but that you go with it. O was the creator from the recent ads for Kia Motors, in which beloved Uncle Carl, on his deathbed, explains to his teenage nephews a final wish: he wants his ashes to be strewn on top of a mountain, that I may join with eternity in a moment of quiet reflection. Cut to the teens barrelling in the mountain in a Kia. The urn is strapped to the back seat, bouncing violently. Ashes are coming out. Once they get through to the mountaintop, the teens consider the urn, and find out that it is empty. Carl, they giggle.
After the ad ran, O says, the agency braced for a backlash. thought we obtain some letters, he admits that. thought many people could find it to become a tiny bit upsetting. O was nonplussed when the only complaints came from an unexpected quarter. really got it from the environmentalists, he admits that. the kids knocked over a lot of bushes in route in the hill. Yet DiPiazza says MTV has brought no complaints. The network gets away with it, DiPiazza says, because obvious we having a good time. And that we treated the genre with many different respect. You can push the limits a little bit, so long as it done with good humor, also it from a smart place. hindsight, DiPiazza says, it easy to see how Saatchi put its foot in its mouth. would ever guess what happened, he says. said, I got it. We track a Kenyan runner through the desert and merely for Feet puts shoes on him! I mean, on that level, it sounds epic. Where it went from there, DiPiazza says, where the badness happened. says he can think of just one successful example of an advertisement where a human being is hunted. was an ad for Airwalk snow boots. It had been these folks, flying around in helicopters. There was this Mutual-of-Omaha voiceover: we staring at the migrating habits of the Alpine snowboarder. The thing is an aerial shot of the bunch of snowboarders. One of them fallen way behind. The men in the helicopter take out a tranquilizer gun and shoot the stray. They land, plus they say, the issue. It his snow boots. So they put some Airwalk snow boots on him, provide him a pat about the ass. And right away, he shoots off, and catches up with all of those other pack. And they take a look at one another and say, a great day. DiPiazza is growing animated. understand what? he says. can hunt a person. It been done before. It funny. They treated it just like a joke. The response to being shot through the tranquilizer gun was done very well. Saatchi Saatchi just blew it. They provided an error at every turn. problem, says DiPiazza, is that the ad failed to exude the requisite a feeling of postmodern knowingness. not sure if they being serious, or when they actually trying to be offensive, and having fun with it, he says. you likely to hunt an individual, you got to actually chase the guy down. I am talking about, bring in helicopters and commandos, you know? When someone pushing the envelope, you need to know they know they exceeding expectations. is near-universal agreement that for all its flaws, the ad would have attracted little notice had Only for Feet not opted to broadcast it during the Super Bowl, the most-watched television event within the nation, and lately a showcase for show-stopping creative work. you place an ad within the Super Bowl, you're really putting it in an environment where ads are judged from beginning to end, says Jimmy Siegel, executive creative director at BBDO Worldwide. waiting for your ad to tank. Everyone waiting to rip it to shreds I mean, this isn the NFL game of a few days. You're really putting yourself out there and saying, take a look at us. Exactly what do everyone think? who produced the Visa Check Card spots that aired throughout the 1997 Super Bowl, says the cutthroat environment can put a premium on edginess. no glory in it, says Siegel of doing Super Bowl ads. so underneath the microscope, it impossible to do things that seep into the culture. The feeling is you just there to do ads that hit people on the chin. Inn certainly accomplished that in 1997, when it hired Fallon McElligot to make a 30-second Super Bowl ad, the theme of which was said to be your accommodation chain $1 billion renovation. To dramatize this message of rebirth and renewal, the agency produced an area about a voluptuous transsexual, Johnson, who surprises classmates in a 20-year college reunion. The ad was widely derided, and was eventually pulled after just one airing.
funny, says Wieden Kennedy McBride. a particular point, both clients and agencies go mad once they try to do the Super Bowl. They just get into this frenzy, and lose all a feeling of judgment. Everyone wants to do the point that gets talked about the following day. Discuss pressure. McBride sighs. a means, he admits that, good this happened. It good that someone finally went too much. Maybe we all must be reminded that there are limits; that there are lines you shouldn cross. Especially these days. if some were happy to see Saatchi overreaching creatives taken down a peg or two, others say the case will send exactly the wrong message. Provocateurs like Brian O fear clients will use Only for Feet comeuppance being an excuse for favoring timid, orthodox work. always telling clients, take a risk, make a leap of faith, he says. last thing we want is perfect for clients to be cautious about the good stuff This can be a lapse of responsibility for an agency that will hurt all agencies when it comes to the way you perceived. Saatchi miscue breakthrough advertising a poor name, agrees Lee Kovel of Kovel Fuller in Los Angeles. says to clients that risky advertising is a major liability, once the fact is the liability is not the work itself. The liability is not approaching the partnership correctly. fact, in the legal complaint, Only for Feet makes clear the company viewed itself not as a partner, but as a tremulous innocent, unsure about how to achieve the general public, and completely hypnotized through the expertise of Saatchi Saatchi. In an unusual move, the organization confesses to impotence in a central section of business performance: marketing. Within this version, did not present the ultimate version of the Kenya commercial to simply for Feet until shortly before the Super Bowl, after which Just for Feet expressed [its] misgivings and dissatisfaction. Saatchi, sticking by its guns, then Just for Feet the commercial could be well-received, depending on Saatchi expertise and experience with national marketing and advertising. In retrospect, the organization confidence was misplaced. for Feet never might have allowed Saatchi commercial to become broadcast whether it had anticipated such a negative and unintended reaction, rather than the favorable reaction that it was assured of by Saatchi, the advertising and marketing expert in which Only for Feet placed its faith. creatives roll their eyes only at that kind of calculated naiveti. saying they these little country bumpkins from Birmingham, says BBDO Siegel. mean, this is the fastest-growing athletic footwear company in the country. Presumably they have marketing experts, brand managers whose business it is to be aware what the organization should be saying, exactly what the message should be. You can just blame it all on Saatchi. Others in addition have a difficult time swallowing the concept of a litigious footwear tycoon who so conflict-averse he is able to say no inside a meeting. kill work every day, says Jill Schroeder, chairman of the Lodge. kill it when it in the conceptual stages. They kill it when it being produced. They kill it after it been produced and is already in the can. They simply say they don want to run it. Not one other explanation given. For any client to say he so mesmerized by Saatchi he lost control of their own decision-making process and conceded all decisions to Saatchi is ridiculous. for his part, admits he no country bumpkin, but points out that this was his company first foray in to the amorphous terrain of advertising. tried newspaper inserts,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], saying, for sale this week for $19.99, he admits that. had never done anything such as this before in our life. In addition, Ruttenberg says, he was manipulated by Saatchi creative team, who demanded total freedom and autonomy, then turned into sniveling children when he'd the temerity to criticize their work. came in and demonstrated the half-finished product. I was told that how much they liked it. I said it was unacceptable. At that time, Ruttenberg says,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], charge creative remarked that he was batting for 1000, and the man felt Ruttenberg barks an unfortunate little laugh. feels crushed? It costing me huge amount of money and he feels crushed? I told him to conquer it. crushed, I told him, we up front. Ayer Son Advertising Agency,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], image-maker for such august corporations as General Electric and also at In the 1930s, Marchand writes, Ayer was frequently mocked because of its pretentious and archaic language ( the ocean from the centuries man sails the ship of his dreams its dignified format and exalted headlines and it is sage maxims (the agency own motto was Everlastingly At It will not find any smelly underwear,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], foul breath, skin eruptions, discolored teeth,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], violent coughing, streaming eyes or odoriferous armpits in Ayer copy and art, wrote an old Ayer employee in 1933. Such ridicule,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Marchand notes, didn't unsettle Ayer. Ayer Son as too conservative? answer to this, replied Ayer Sr, that we have much to save Great interests are entrusted to us. for Feet isn't any AT or GE; still, it tough to not be moved when Harold Ruttenberg extols the glories of his footwear empire its half-court basketball hoops and its huge video screens, its reputation for neighborliness and fumes, people had no to put us in danger. But among some creatives, the needed for Feet lawsuit has prompted a round of soul-searching about what it mean
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