Marketing Campaigns of the Past Decade: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The past ten years have been a memorable decade in advertising, with too many to name. Some have been political, brave or emotional. Others bizarre and funny and some were offensive, insensitive and badly timed.

Here are a few of the good, bad and ugly marketing campaigns of the past decade: 

The good: 

Old Spice’s “Man Your Man Could Smell Like”

For years associated with old men and long declining in popularity, this campaign was seen as a way to reinvent Old Spice and popularise it with a new generation.

The idea for this was born out of research that showed women make the majority of body wash purchases many men were simply using their girlfriend’s body wash.

In a last-ditch attempt to rescue the brand Weiden & Kennedy designed a series of ads that would appeal to these women without alienating men; from this “The man your man could smell like” was born.

The quirky, fun nature of the ads cemented ‘old spice guy’s’ pop culture status and has made old spice one of the most popular body wash and deodorant brands today.

Dove’s “Campaign for real beauty” 

Now in its 16th year, this multi-channel, experimental campaign from Dove was lauded as being “thought-provoking”, “progressive” and “eye-opening” by many.

It took a different approach to the cosmetics ads of the time by “portraying women as they are in real life”. It challenged many people to think about how the industry views beauty and how they view themselves.

For many people, this is one of the most memorable campaigns of the past decade and for good reason.

Red Bull’s “Stratos”

In 2012 Red Bull broke frontiers, both in the world of marketing and endurance. Felix Baumgartner jumped from a balloon, freefalling 39km and breaking the record for the highest skydive as well as becoming the first free-falling human to break the sound barrier.

Red Bull said this was a “first and foremost, a scientific mission”, despite this it was one of the most successful and memorable marketing campaigns of the past 10 years, with 52 million viewers across 80 countries.

This stunt cemented the idea that “red bull gives you wings” and gave Red Bull a major boost in sales. 

The bad:

Pepsi’s “Jump In”

This protest themed ad featuring Kendall Jenner was intended to show that people are brought together by similar tastes, however less than a year after the riots in Charlotte and at a time of high racial tension, it couldn’t have been more poorly timed.

Pepsi was accused of using police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement for-profit and the video was removed a day after it was released.

Pepsi released an apology was issued saying they “missed the mark”, a bit of an understatement to say the least.

Victoria’s Secret’s “Perfect Body”

At a time when body positivity is a prominent theme in advertising, this campaign couldn’t have been more off the mark. This campaign centred around the concept of a “perfect body” sparked outrage and inspired the hashtag #iamperfect.

After social media backlash and several petitions, Victoria’s Secret gave in to pressure and changed the slogan to “A body for every body”

The ugly: 

Nationwide’s “Boy” 

Well-intentioned but poorly executed, this Superbowl advert centred around a young boy talking about his life only for it to turn out that he was dead the whole time and would never experience the things he was talking about. The ad ends by saying “The number one cause of childhood death is accidents”.

Immediately there was a massive backlash online and the company was forced to issue an apology, saying it was meant to “start a conversation, not sell insurance”.

Either way, using a child’s death to advertise your company probably isn’t in good taste.

Hyundai ‘Pipe job’

In an effort to illustrate how few emissions its latest car put out, Hyundai showed a man trying to kill himself with Carbon Monoxide but failing because of how clean the fumes are. It’s unbelievable that anyone thought an advertisement using mental illness to sell cars was a good idea.

The issue with this is immediately clear, Hyundai was accused of trivialising suicide; like the Pepsi advert, it illustrated the dangers of using prominent social issues in advertising.

Again, a swift apology was released but by that stage, the damage was already done.

Nivea’s “White is purity” 

This post on Nivea’s Middle East page was meant to advertise Nivea’s new stainless deodorant spray, this advertisement clearly wasn’t thought through.

Posted with the tagline "Keep it clean, keep it bright. Don't let anything ruin it.", the post was quickly shared by far-right groups and was widely mocked on social media for its racist connotations before Nivea removed it.

This campaign shows what not to do when releasing a new campaign and highlights the sensitivity of social media advertising.