angus.todd

When Apple launched the iPhone 5, the public response was extremely positive. Within the first 24 hours, there were over two million pre-orders and this was a typical scene outside of retail stores:

In 2012 the most viewed advertisement on YouTube was Nike Football’s “My Time Is Now” ad, that had a staggering 20,884,282 views. Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMv8g8CO4cQ

Both Apple and  Nike have phenomenal brands that are recognizable the world over – the Nike and Apple brands are estimated to be worth roughly $14.9 billion and $87.3 billion respectively. There is no doubting that these companies have done an amazing job establishing and maintaing their brands. But so what!? As someone who is interested in learning how to address the challenges that might arise when working in Marketing, I find the interesting stories not to be associated with successes, but with stories of failure and the campaigns that result from failure.

Take for example GM, who, after being $172.81 billion in debt, needed a $49.5 billion bailout from taxpayers. After this bailout American taxpayers were outraged and felt that the company did not deserve such an expensive second chance, particularly as the economic downturn that had effected GM also affected 55% of the American people (non of which suffered as lenient consequences).

In 2009  GM released the following commercial,  titled ‘Thank You (We all fall down)’, intended to make people think of GM  not as the evil corporation that’s stealing tax dollars but instead as a human being that, like the other 313 million American citizens, makes mistakes from time to time. Here it is:

Roughly a year later, GM released a follow up commercial that acted as proof to the public that they had not made a mistake in helping GM in its times of difficulty. This is the commercial:

The effect these campaigns had was most accurately described by Heidi Moore, a journalist from The Guardian, who said “After you watch a batch of post-bailout thank-you ads from [GM], it seems that the only patriotic thing to do is storm the White House, asking why we aren’t bailing out more companies. It’s our duty as Americans.”.

It is interesting that the public opinion of GM was (arguably) changed with but a few thoughtfully planned ads.