Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Elia Pekica Pagon
In our daily dealing with advertising campaigns in the media space near and around us, we often neglect to comment on international campaigns. Some are indeed laudable examples of directions we ourselves should follow in creating campaigns, and some are clumsy examples of a lack of understanding of modern advertising trends, of which online advertising is certainly one of the most prominent. One of the campaigns that went unnoticed in our media space last October was the Australian campaign for the fast food chain Chicken Treat, whose marketing team came up with – they believe – a revolutionary and awesome idea, in deciding to leave the management of their official Twitter profile to a chicken called Betty, by placing her in an enclosed space with a laptop and publishing her random “ramblings” on their Twitter profile.
This on its own is already scary enough for all animal lovers, but what makes the whole thing even more shocking is the number of mindless comments from their Twitter profile followers, expressing their enthusiasm for the idea and their approval of this controversial marketing move. There are, nonetheless, some comforting comments – such as those from a woman who wrote that she was shocked by the fact that the company decided to hire a hen to promote its own death – but the real question is: how could a company go so low in its marketing?
Prominent media that focus on the advertising industry, such as Adweek, weren’t particularly upset about this campaign either. They just published the facts: that there is a laptop in a henhouse, permanently available to a hen called Betty, that she has entered the Guinness Book of Records as the first tweeting hen, and that this campaign has achieved enormous publicity. Betty, of course, is not aware of what’s going on, including the fact that by typing on the keyboard she is addressing those who eat her kind.
One journalist ironically wrote that her posts are no worse than the posts of some of the other companies on social networks – written by people. Followers of the Twitter profile led by Betty eagerly await her every update, such as this one:
== JN9 5R HN IIORRTRRRRQO K,KKKK OUKP8————————– //////O //////////////////////////////——————- ///
7UG, Z =========
uu ======================================
…which was particularly ridiculed, with people posting comments about it, which they obviously thought were hilarious, such as that Betty obviously loves equations. The creators of this ridiculous campaign and its worshipers wait in eager anticipation for the “first meaningful word that Betty will write in English.” What will happen after that, no one knows. But, until then, until she writes something “meaningful”, Betty will tirelessly tweet, fighting for her survival with her incoherent messages.
Such instances, when we, as advertising industry workers, come across such examples of marketing communication, are moments when we should ask ourselves: who are these colleagues of ours at home and abroad? Who are these people who use their “creativity” to spread their questionable ideology through advertising campaigns?
And, no, we’re not hypocrites if we say that this campaign is neither humane nor socially responsible, nor proper, because, after all, not everyone eats chicken, do they?
To put a poor animal in such an absurd situation, closed up in a room with a laptop, serving as grotesque entertainment for networked tweeters, is utterly inhumane, and is real evidence that even today, despite the lessons of history, people are still that same bloodthirsty crowd eager for sacrifice. It is possible to know a person by what they find funny, so we have to ask – what kind of people find Betty’s fate funny?
And the good old saying that a good horse raises dust doesn’t hold true here. Although the campaign raised dust, it’s not because it’s good, but because it’s controversial and therefore causing numerous and contradictory reactions. Are we really going to go that far in the fight to win as many online clicks as possible, and will we follow the old adage “even bad publicity is good publicity”, to such an extent just to reach the widest public? And, are we going to employ farm animals to promote their own death, through the products that are obtained through their sacrifice?
Online communication, or social networking as its most popular platform, has failed miserably this time, and has shown a worrying superficiality of the human mind in its application.
Each chickentweet, so ridiculed by those who laugh at it, is a profound and very coherent statement that those people do not understand and will never understand or be able to decipher, and far more meaningful than any word from any dictionary…
Images, source:
www.chickentreat.com.au
Iwww.adweek.com
Twitter profile Chicken Treat:
twitter.com/ChickenTreat
#chickentweet
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