‘Fail’ compilation ad by Ozmosis branded ‘irresponsible’ and banned by ad watchdog
Surf and skate brand Ozmosis has had its ‘Show us your scars’ ad – made up of a mixture of surfing and skating fails – censured for “encouraging and glorifying personal injury”.
The ad has been labeled as “irresponsible” as it encourages young people to “do stupid things and put themselves at risk and danger”.
As a massive fan of win/fail compilations, what they could have done is played more on the WIN than the FAIL. Reward people that pull off great tricks rather than the ones that fail them. Or even both.
But yeah, rewarding just the fail does come across encouraging it. Many moons ago, my mates and I would have seen this and created epic fails just to win prizes. Granted, a survey of 1, but I for sure can say I would have been encouraged!
Its not even that original, looks just like Thrasher Magazine’s Hall of Meat http://www.thrashermagazine.com/hall-of-meat/ beloved by teenaged skateboarders.
As advertisers we really need to do better than this. Not sure if this was a bad strategy to begin with or what exactly went wrong. But selling clients content that already exists wrapped in a bad insight was clearly just a bad idea.
Know your audience. Teens & young adults might buy but you’re also selling to their parents. Know BOTH audiences.
Hopefully Ugly can come back from this one..
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this ad, as someone who rides BMX, I have scars all over my body and have broken upwards of 10 bones… There is no way that I would do this on purpose because (as most people know) falling off and hurting yourself sucks! If you’re angry at this ad, you have obviously never undertaken any action sport. The ad is not asking you to go out and hurt yourself, but rather reward you if you happen to have had a mishap whilst following your passion. This is the first time I’ve commented on one of these posts, but please just let kids be kids, I’m not even a kid anymore and I will gladly send myself at something (you may see as) dangerous in order to gain the personal satisfaction of pulling the trick. I didn’t break my leg and both my collar bones sitting in front of the computer. I was going to say that maybe the ad could have had a different spin, but upon seeing it again I have absolutely no problem with it and believe anyone who does to be part of the PC nation that we have created! Nobody in their right mind is going to go out of there way to induce a lasting scar on themselves and the people that would are definitely not the demographic that Ozmosis is trying to market to. Keep running this ad and I will keep sending it!
This.