Marketingweb yesterday reported on Brandhouse’s sense of humour failure with regards to the Windhoek Lager Dumisani ad.
The viral sensation that’s been posted on advertising and brand related Web sites and emailed ten to the dozen uses the Windhoek Lager campaign branding and payoff line to tell National Anthem desecrator Ras Dumisani to “keep it real”.
While Windhoek Lager ad agency The Jupiter Drawing Room appreciated the spoof, and displayed that they understood that brands live in the hearts and minds of consumers. That being absorbed into popular culture is a sure sign of success for a commercial campaign, Brandhouse begged to differ.
Spin doctor Priscilla Singh, who calls herself the corporate and public relations manager at Brandhouse, said to Marketingweb that the company was “distancing itself” from the spoof and that they would be calling in the legal sharks for a little ‘Salem Witch Hunt’
“The controversy over the singing of the anthem by Duminsani is a matter of national concern, and one we take seriously,” she says, adding that this sort of “ambush marketing” is not something Brandhouse condones,” Sing said.
I say fire whomever is offering Brandhouse reputation advice or PR strategy.
With one heavy handed comment Brandhouse has sacrificed legions of investment in recreating Windhoek Lager as a brand that is smart, wry, accessible, funny and a product for the people, by the people and of the people.
It shows how bureaucracy, limited thinking and a fear based approach that undermines and misunderstands the intersection of branding and consumer engagement.
All Brandhouse is doing is leaving a bitter taste in the hearts and minds of consumers, negatively affecting their own brand, inviting further spoofs and throwing good money after bad by paying the lawyers who love cash to hunt down the “bad guy” in this scenario.
Grow a funny bone Brandhouse!
And for your own sake start understanding and appreciating the dynamics of social networks and media.
This thing has 9 Comments
We had a little dig at their lack of balls in last night Peep Show. Muppets.
Right on Mandy. Brandhouse’s approach to this is actually quite embarrassing and is symptomatic of a company that’s out of touch, in my opinion.
Ms Singh and Brandhouse clearly wouldn’t recognise a marketing good thing or blessing if it sang a bad National Anthem right into their prissy faces. How utterly dof. Do they have *any* idea what value such exposure, conversation and interest is worth? Forget the wee bit of plagiarising and (very skillful) adaptation (for the occasion only) of the logo etc. It’s the fact that they’re behaving just like SAB did with Justin Nurse’s ‘laugh it off’ campaign, that sticks in the craw. Why not do what FNB did with Nurse at the time? Bought some of the danged T-shirts if memory serves me correctly.
Sense of humour deficit and getting all anal over something like this impacts negatively on the brand, its equity, its personality and most of all on the custodians (self-appointed or actual) of that brand.
Social Media is re-defining the adscape and marketing ‘rules’. Organisations or ad agencies that cling to outdated ‘control’ frameworks are, sooner or later, going to find themselves having devalued the currency of their progeny. Silly, myopic people.
Although we all understand that reputation management needs to look towards some measure of brand protection, in today’s reality of consumer generated content, this type of myopic approach will end in #brandfail and embracing will get #brand ftw (for-the-win for those who don’t know Twitter) I fully agree with Clive, Social Media is the new opportunity for the communications industry as a whole and it is changing the way do things. Get with the program!
brandhouse chooses to respect Ras even though he messed up. I think that they have kept the moral high ground here despite the temptation of a viral runaway.
What the article is effectively saying is that you want brands to start joining citizens in the criticism of people who are supposed to be ambassadors for South Africa.
I think you should look beyond the moment of fun that was shut down and consider the situation from brandhouse/Windoek’s perspective.
Rhett… whatever way you look at it brandhouse lost the plot. Their response was overstated, aggressive and ill informed. And I think you should look to the fact that anonymous comments that support brandhouse look more like propaganda or spin doctoring damage control than a legitimate opinion.
Say what you want. You are missing the point and looking at everything around my comment to respond to instead of the comment itself. I am trying to introduce some perspective to the discussion, seeing that your post or any of the other comments above have considered it.
If anything, the post itself is overstated, aggressive and ill informed. There are more loaded terms in there than the quotes used.
*seeing that your post or any of the other comments above have not considered it.
moral high ground? from a company that sells and markets a product with more blood on its hands than pontius pilate? that has to be the funniest thing i’ve read this year…