Heart Foundation pulls ‘Heartless Words’ campaign
The Heart Foundation has backed down on its controversial ‘Heartless Words’ campaign, pulling the advert from rotation and issuing an apology.
The divisive campaign featured a mother telling her child “every time I told you I loved you I was lying”.
The campaign debuted on Monday night and immediately attracted criticism from the public over the implication that those who suffer from heart disease do not care about their families. On Tuesday the Heart Foundation pulled the 60-second TVC from YouTube.
I’m glad that the Heart Foundation listened to people like myself who contacted them to say this was a cruel way to get across an important health message.
We do outrage so well these days. Unfortunately it’s only reserved for things like ad campaigns and franking credits.
I get that a tension or shock can make great creative – but doing this at the expense of those suffering from heart disease or those left behind is shameless.
Pity to the agency and CMO. Heart Disease is not about fame. It is about awareness
Dis cos tan
Understand that the client has to sign off on the idea so ultimately they take the responsibility for the misstep, but I am very interested to hear from Havas/Host about the creative process and thinking behind what (admittedly in hindsight) looks like a fairly obviously bad idea.
Hhmmm,
The campaign was on strategy. The execution and delivery may have lacked judgement. The “however” point is that Heart Disease is a very genuine reality and massive killer across Australia. Sometimes we need a genuine injection of reality to bring focus to it, and get out there and make changes to our lives and behavior – especially when these things are preventative and often lifestyle driven.
At least its being talked about – so, campaign has worked!
I suspect that seeing as the CMO was clearly backing this campaign after the controversy hit, but the organisation has now concluded it’s better off killing it, any gain in short term awareness/action is being heavily outweighed by a loss in long term brand health and doners….
If you’re looking at bottom line, I would definitely say the campaign didn’t work. It’s the most lucrative time of the year – tax appeal time – for charities, and I would bet that the Heart Foundation will see a sharp drop in donations this year because of this campaign – as well as a sharp increase in cranky phone calls and emails to deal with.
Yes, it got people talking, but the people who matter were talking about how they’re going to find another charity to support this year!
Apart from being insensitive, they’re just really bad films. Like parodies of the category. As an industry we need to do better
If this was a quit smoking add everyone would be singing its praises. A courageous add that wants me to live a healthy life for my loved ones. In this modern world of indulgence we all need a wake up call.
Yeah – because context. Smoking is seen today as a consciously unhealthy and irresponsible choice. You know what you’re doing.
This idea however draws far too long a bow. It frames its argument in the wrong way. Especially in calling people liars who do not love their families. This ad will be seen by those bereaving the loss of a loved partner or parent. They lied to you, and didn’t love you? Terrible idea.
For a 60 sec masterclass in how to do a heart-wrenching heart disease wakeup call without crossing the line, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQtz2wYBFsE
An Aust remake with a more urgent call-to-action would have nailed the brief.
How did it not occur to them that this was 100% guaranteed cause mortal offence to some bereaved people (and rightly so)?
Buck stops with CMO.No ifs or buts.
Had they tweaked this to a guilt play, this campaign could have been strong. Changing the sentiment from “she never loved me” to “if I loved you, I would take action now.”
Get to the point – accountability is on the individual and not the heart-broken.
Could have been so good if it had been executed differently. Instead the Heart Foundation has wasted a lot of donor funds on a campaign they had to pull and now are likely scared off future bold campaigns to highlight an important issue. What a shame! Poor advice from the agency but also poor internal judgement. Was there a supporter and public focus group when the creative was being developed? Did the marketing team consult internal teams like fundraising and clinical at all? Most fundraisers and clinicians would certainly know donors and beneficiaries would react like this (and it’s tax time – really bad timing). Or did the marketing team have such confidence that they believed they didn’t need to pay attention to any feedback from anyone?! Lots of learning for them for any future campaigns.
There is something that might have been missed here, though it is possible that it was not so much missed, as never considered in the first place.
There is much more to theatre than remembering the moves and lines and avoiding collisions with the furniture. There are many pitfalls associated with its creation, one such is the group equivalent of the Folie à deux, where the creative team becomes so emotionally moved by the concept in hand, that they allow common sense and reasoning to become suspended.
Theatrical productions only reach completion when they are presented to an audience, that person or group of people which constitutes the final ingredient of any theatrical presentation.
“First, do no harm” is said to be the oath of the doctor; in the case of the theatrical actor, producer, director, it is “Never inflict pain upon an audience”
I am sick of this so-called ‘politically-correct’ advertising. First, we had ‘the category of my compulsive behaviour is not covered by anti-discrimation legislation so I will invent a pseudo-discrimination category, such as fat-shaming, slut-shaming (male as well as female), pill-shaming, ciggie-shaming, food-shaming and every other kind of shaming.’ Sheesh! This is not a free society!
And now we have this ad using spurious arguments to convince the gullible that their parents never loved them, while annoying the living hell out of the rest of us for its stupidity. What about the sweating, jogging ‘healthy’ fools who pound the pavement every day and die in their forties? (from heart failure or getting hit by cars). SURELY, they should be FIRST to be included in the “‘Every time I told you I loved you, I was lying” mantra!
The simple reality is that corporate and real estate greed is driving time-poor people to fast food (but charities will never speak up against this!).