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Writer's pictureDominic Parker

When advertising is REALLY honest

Updated: Nov 6, 2019


Question: Is advertising honest with us?

Answer: Sort of. Spoiler warning, If you didn't already know, messages are spun to tell us what brands want us to hear.

In 1990 a film was released called Crazy People. I was eleven at the time, I remember seeing it with friends at the Odeon cinema in Bromley and thought it was just ok, but nothing more.

As I've gotten older and spent more time in marketing departments the film pops back into my head all these years later. Why's that you may ask? If you haven't seen it, the film's about an Advertising Exec, played by Dudley Moore. He becomes disillusioned with misleading customers with questionable campaigns that don't fully tell the truth. If memory serves, he pitches an ad that speaks the whole truth about a product. Shocked by the honesty his colleagues believe that he's suffered a breakdown and he ends up being sent to a retreat. His truthful advert accidentally ends up being published, it proves to be a huge success and Dudley Moore and his fellow patients start creating ads that tell nothing but the truth about various products with great success.

There are some amazing, genius examples in the gallery below. These actually appeared in the movie, make sure you take a look, they'll make you giggle (scroll right):

In a case of life imitating art Carlsberg has this week taken a leaf out of this movie. Their latest advertising campaign is being honest about its main product. Here's a snap from their latest comms piece:


Carlsberg honesty ad

I have to applaud Carlsberg and campaign creators Fold7 for their bravery. They're holding their hands up and saying that their product has previously been inferior, that they have taken their eye off the ball. In a time when micro brewing and craft beers/ales are hugely popular a mass-produced, watery lager is clearly not as popular as it once was. But this strategy comes with two major risks.:

1) Alienation of current customers who might feel misled

2) Still not appealing to a new customer base enough to tempt them to sample the revised recipe

Alienation may not be such an issue when you think about how many times washing powders and detergents offer new and improved recipes, basically suggesting that their previous offering that people have been relying on for years, but is still for sale, is greatly inferior. It'll be very clear, very quickly if the quality of the product has improved as reviews start to appear.

You can read what The Drum has to say about the campaign HERE.

Thinking about the statement from Carlsberg started me thinking about other recent examples of total honesty in advertising. Most notably from McDonald's and KFC.


This campaign from Maccie D's about the contents of its chicken nuggets shows that the company acknowledges and is fully aware of concerns that customers might have with one of their products. They have taken very clear steps to address these concerns. I believe that they also did something similar with their beef burger recipe a few years ago, highlighting the sources of their meat.

KFC was faced with a slightly different challenge of their own making. I'm sure you all remember the outcry when they switched their distribution company for their chicken. The fast-food brand that makes it's money from chicken totally messed up and ran out of chicken.

KFC's marketing and agency teams played a blinder by tackling the PR disaster head-on with honesty and acknowledging that they had 'messed up' (or words to that effect, see image below). They apologised to their customers which would've helped retain brand loyalty with the chicken giant.

The chicken crisis saw KFC produce some of the most memorable and striking campaigns they've ever done, like this full-page advert that appeared in the national press across the UK:


KFC FCK

I like honest advertising. I like that brands share their weaknesses, challenges they face and acknowledge when they've made a mistake, it humanises these corporations.

So, let me ask the question at the top again.

Question: Is advertising honest with us?

Answer: Sort of. Some are far more honest and open with their customers than others, and they are better for it.

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An extra treat

I hope that you enjoyed this blog, if not to lighten your day here's the excellent 'Hello' song from the movie Crazy People shown above to enjoy. I'd completely forgotten about this song until I started researching this blog. I dare you not to smile:


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