In remembrance of the 9/11 attacks that occurred twelve years ago there was a number of inappropriate and insensitive advertisements that were both unappreciated and offensive to many people who viewed them.

Recent advertisements by organizations such as AT&T, HBO, Marriott and the Los Angeles Lakers who attempted to call for “Remembrance” sparked an interesting article from the Globe and Mail. Susan Krashinsky, the author of this article titled “Marketing Tragedies: When Ads Become Apologies”, initially explains the marketing mistakes that were made on September 11^th of this year that were made very public through social media sites such as Twitter.

AT&T decided to use a new smart phone to display an image of “Ground 0” with two large lights where the Twin Towers once stood.

 

 

 

 

 

The Marriott decided it was appropriate to provide muffins for 30 minutes of the day.

  

Krashinsky further goes on to highlight other instances where companies use situational references to market their products and, just as the fore-mentioned companies did, did an extremely poor job of doing so.

Though there were comedic undertones to this article, it evidently displays an ongoing problem that can have incredibly negative impacts on any organization. One lesson that this article has taught me is that there are a few topics that organizations and individuals should not involve themselves with, for political, religious, and ethically sensitive reasons. The article also brings to question whether you’d call an organization unethical for displaying these add’s? Would it have been unethical for these same companies to do nothing, instead of something? These are the questions I really am not educated enough to be able to answer but, I can say that there are many sides to ethical dilemmas and in certain situations, especially in business, deciding what side of an argument is the ethical side can be extremely difficult. Regardless, I will firmly support anyone and any organization that wants to be ethical and who strives to encapsulate this very idealistic characteristic.