An outdoor ad campaign running in the UK aims to promote outdoor advertising (according to Brand Republic) but pretty much backfired when one piece, a controversial bus ad, became the focus of media attention regarding the campaign. Oops, I guess the “Career Women Make Bad Mothers” copy was a bad choice. (Note: this is confusing because it seems like a campaign aimed at getting people to share their opinions, but then the story says it’s to get more exposure for outdoor advertising. We reached out to some folks in the UK about it, but it’s late and they’re probably at the pub. Meantime, we wait.)
Some key quotes from a guy at Beta, the agency responsible for the work, called Britain Thinks.
“The campaign was designed to start a debate about the issue rather than criticise career women, which would clearly be wholly inappropriate and utterly ridiculous.
“You only have to look at the content on the Britain Thinks website to understand that we are trying to build a picture about what people in Britain think about some of the most important issues in an election year.”
Whatever the intent of this campaign, it’s just pissing people off — to the point that the Outdoor Advertising Association demanded this specific piece be taken down and so now it is.
Via BrandRepublic