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Tasteless: Five ads that let down the brands they were advertising
It is never a good idea to exploit people’s pain for an ad. Dove, Uber, Pepsi and two other brands did exactly that and paid for it.
Presenting some of the biggest brand faux pas of 2017. On the bright side, there are lessons to be learned here: Don’t do what they did.
Pepsi
Pepsi’s two-and-a-half minute spot “Live for Now,” featured Kendall Jenner leaving her modelling job to join a nondescript protest. Tensions mount between protesters and police until Jenner magically solves everything by opening a Pepsi for a cop. The brand quickly pulled the spot, which was released in early April, and apologized.
Dove
In October, Dove posted a social ad on its Facebook page that featured a black woman taking off a shirt similar to her skin tone to reveal that she had turned into a white woman wearing a shirt similar to her skin tone. Dove too backtracked and pulled off the ad.
Facebook, Uber and McDonald’s too went down the ‘incorrectness’ route and repented. Read on..