Morrisons twist on billboard advertising draws derision
- Summary:
- When Morrisons use of the Angel of the North as a giant billboard, the stunt backfired big time.
The Telegraph reports that the Angel's sculptor, Antony Gormley dubbed it 'shocking and stupid.' The illumination may contravene terms that Gormley agreed which say the sculpture should be unlit. Be that as it may, the Twitterverse wasn't short of comment.
Speaking personally, these are a couple of my favorites:
@beaubodor David Cameron is a walking durex advert.
— F E R A L (@feralbritain) May 5, 2014
For those unfamiliar with the Durex brand, they sell condoms. Those unfamiliar with the name Cameron, he's the UK's prime minister.
Jenny Eclair, arguably one of the UK's national treasures in the comedy department didn't hold back:
angel of the North being used to advertise a shitty supermarket ( or anything) makes me burn with fury
— Jenny Eclair (@jennyeclair) May 5, 2014
I'm now waiting for her to turn up on Loose Women, a UK daytime TV show and opine on the topic.
For its part, Morrisons eventually caved in to the outrage:
A spokesman added: “We’re sorry if you thought we got carried away by shining a baguette on the Angel of the North and apologise unreservedly to those to whom we have caused offence. We were trying something different which was meant to put a smile on peoples faces but clearly it wasn’t to everybody’s tastes. We’re so proud of our northern roots and the last thing we want to do is offend anybody.”
Supermarket giant Morrisons plight is a lesson on neglecting multi-channel retailWe’ve written a lot about the efforts by major retail enterprises around the globe, such as Walmart,…Mar 14 2014diginomica.cLocal MP Simon Mearns though gets quote of the day, saying that Morrisons should 'have used its loaf.' Quite.
Humor and outrage aside, I'm torn. On the one hand I can see why people would get upset. The Angel of the North is an iconic sculpture in much the same way that Stonehenge is a national monument of world renown. People get mightily pissed when these things get messed with.
On the other hand, when companies are in the mess that Morrisons is right now, it can lead to what some might view as desperate measures. One can only imagine how the conversation in the creative department went.
Whichever way it went, the court of public opinion has spoken and no doubt we'll see that reflected in the next set of results that Morrisons reports.
Side note: We at diginomica are not fans of most advertising but we'll give this one 9/10 for evil genius. In the meantime, we're waiting to see if Durex lights up Nelson's Column. ;)
Image via The Telegraph