More than 10 people were involved in this ad. WTF?

Ads for big brands are touched by a lot of people before they’re released.
How come no one noticed this one was terrible?

This week Belvedere Vodka got in a lot of trouble when it posted this print advertisement on its Facebook page:

Belvedere vodka ad

Maybe the person who wrote the tagline thought it would be a ‘cheeky’ double-entendre – in questionable taste, but maybe okay if it was used with a photo of, say, two obviously gay men and used in the bathroom of a downtown dance club.

This, for example, doesn’t bother me (or, probably, anyone) nearly as much:

double entendre effen advertising

(The line here is “There is nothing more satisfying than Effen on a plane.”)

But when you stick a “going down” line on a photo of a man apparently forcibly restraining a woman, and neither of them are displaying facial expressions consistent with lighthearted, consensual fun, you’ve got a problem. When posting it on your Facebook page brings a firestorm of comments about how it depicts rape, you start to look like you’ve lost the plot.

One guy apologized, but creating this ad was a team effort

When the blogosphere went crazy, Jason Lundy, SVP of Global Marketing for Belvedere, issued an apology and pulled the ad.  That’s fine, I guess, but it misses the point:  This ad wasn’t the misguided brainchild of a single person, or even a single company.  A whole team of people had to create and approve this ad before it ever saw a Facebook page:

  • Copywriter
  • Art director
  • Creative director
  • Designer
  • Account executive (at the ad agency)
  • Account director (at the ad agency)
  • Brand manager (at Belvedere)
  • Marketing director
  • Someone from legal (at Belvedere)
  • Social media coordinator (whoever posts to Belvedere’s Facebook page)

Having worked in a number of big ad agencies, on big brands, I can tell you that this is probably only a partial list of the people who had input on this piece before it ever got converted into a jpg and posted in public.  

So at least 10 people – and probably a whole lot more – who work on the Belvedere marketing account decided that this ad was a good idea.  Apparently they still don’t think it was a big deal, because Belvedere’s ad agency, Last Exit (an interesting name, in the circumstances), still has Belvedere front and center on their website, and they haven’t bothered to post anything about the ad on their blog about the controversy, either.

Now the woman in the ad is suing Belvedere and parent company LVMH – she says the photo they used is actually a still from a short film she made with a friend, that Belvedere used without permission.  

Kinda makes you wonder what the heck goes on in team meetings over at Belvedere and Last Exit. Perhaps they’ve been sampling the product a little too early in the day.