Have you ever seen an advertisement that caused you to scratch your head and ask “What were they thinking?” There’s no shortage of examples of culturally insensitive or politically incorrect ads but sometimes I see things and just can’t figure out how a company decided this was the best way to promote their product. A student recently shared an example with me when she was stumped. Here’s the ad that was pushed to her phone:
This cosmetics ad for a firming treatment features Sega’s popular video game icon Sonic the Hedgehog. Capitalizing on video game popularity isn’t new but what is surprising is the product it was attached to. Firming cosmetics are anti-aging cosmetics and it seems to me that there would be a pretty small intersection of customers who identify with Sonic the Hedgehog and customers who are interested anti-aging products. Maybe I’m wrong but it led to a good classroom discussion. If you have an idea of why Glamglow thought this was a good idea, please post a comment and share!
Leave a Reply