Naked accused of ‘screwing’ the industry over girl-with-the-jacket fake
Strategy agency Naked has been keeping its head down all day after being named as the architect of a fake web site featuring a girl supposedly trying to find a man who left his jacket in a cafe.
The Sydney Morning Herald today said that Naked was behind the stunt, which had immediately raised suspicions of being a hoax, despite denials from the woman involved.
It became a news story over the weekend, when the girl – who said her name was Heidi Clarke – went public, claiming the man had left behind his jacket in a cafe and she wanted to give it back to him. There was also a web site, which has since been taken down, Hotmail adddress and YouTube video to go with it. But she spent so much time in the video extolling the virtues of the “really nice” jacket with its “beautiful silk lining” that it raised suspicions of being a publicity stunt inspired by a similar, genuine story a year ago in the US. In that case, a New Yorker created a web site to find a girl he met on the subway.
More suspicions were raised after it emerged that the jacket was from a forthcoming range by the fashion label Witchery. And it unravelled further after ninemsn had a tipoff that the woman has previously modelled for the brand.
We don’t need to lie to people to get their attention in fact its the single thing we shouldn’t be doing.
Naked are a thought and action leader in Aus, with transparency and authenticity to boot, I’m looking forward to finding out the story behind this one…
Personally, I believe that Simon T Small’s viewpoint is very small indeed, especially with saying, “Naked are a thought and action leader in Aus…”
Do your ‘new’ advertising/ media people ever consider the unintended consequences of your campaigns or blurbs?
As someone who has completed tertiary studies in advertising, psychology & education – and who works as a secondary school English teacher that regularly studies advertising campaigns with students, it would be easy to consign your advertisement (substandard attempt to persuade) to the depths of hell, (aka: the “least effective” list as opposed to the “most effective” list of advertising samples to use with female teenage- students).
Notwithstanding the fact; I am also a consumer.
As a regular holiday-taker, who frequently spent time at that particular “Island”…
Well, they have simply lost my future business.
Yet, with the “Jacket” story…
I believe that could literally be “all in a day’s work” for me.
Would I do that – legally?
Probably not now that I’ve told you guys… But hey? As a consumer and someone who makes the decisions on what are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ persuasive campaigns in my classes on a regular basis – I believe that you people have clearly NOT looked at any of the unintended consequences.
People just don’t like to ‘feel cheated.’
Do they think these things will just never be discovered? it shows pretty poor foresight to not think ahead to after its all been revealed.
Will the thousands of people, including the press (hmmm) who were swept romantically up in this story be happy when it turns out its just to plug the jacket? of course not.. do we really have to con to advertise? how about entertaining?? For too long advertising has either shouted, bored or annoyed its audience.. now we’ve firmly added conning to the list. Lets get back to being entertaining and engaging people.
That’s all good and a very fair assessment of the situation Mr Burrowes. That is, until, someone does the viral and the social media smoke+mirrors so good and it’s great.
I am definitely a firm believer in advertising honesty, as well as advertising for the people. But, we’ve seen time and again that the standards we often uphold high can come crashing down when some advertising idea is so blissfully simple and brilliant.
In Naked’s case, the idea is a fail from the onset because it just doesn’t seem to generate any interest or emotional pull to an outsider. A key component we see in many successful sites, videos and even advertising tactics that are forwarded through communities of today.
Tim,
My phone was on all day . There are many themes to respond to within the above. Here are a few thoughts:
1. Deception? Hmm not really sure if people feel they were deceived from such a campaign (we havent swindelled them out of millions, or indeed caused any harm to anyone we are aware of).
2. Good communications should not interupt what people are enjoying doing, but instead contribute to what people like doing. Surprise / entertain / give them something to talk about??
3. We are all for social media (and understand its power). We realise an experience shared is better than an experience had alone.
4. Our campaigns and un/conventional communications get results for clients – and entertain and/or inform people.
5. One of our most successful campaigns has been hypnomarketing for another clothing company – we pretended to hypnotise people to become brand advocates for the rest of their lives. Much more outrage – very very effective
Thanks all for contributing in the campaign. Call me on 0413633344 with any further questions.
Adam Ferrier
I think the campaign was pathetic. Naked/Witchey/the model should have all come clean when questioned and not just continued to lie in the hope it would sneak past the keeper. I think you’ll find that consumers hardly find it “entertaining” when a potentially heart-warming story turns out to be a deceptive advertising. And YES it was deceptive, because everyone involved denied it was a stunt until the game was up.
Adam, in reponse to your comment
“Deception? Hmm not really sure if people feel they were deceived from such a campaign ”
According to the SMH article, “…several who dismissed it as fake. But Miss Clarke says she is sincere.”
You don’t need to be swindled out of millions to be deceived. In fact, the definition of deception is “something that deceives or is intended to deceive; fraud; artifice.”
What your campaign did was intended to deceive. It was fraudulent and the sole purpose was deceiving people into thinking it was real, to the point where Heidi lying about being sincere.
In fact, sincere is defined as “free of deceit, hypocrisy, or falseness;”
Fine you guys might get great results for your clients, and this campaign might have been very effective for them. But don’t have the hypocrisy to claim that it wasn’t deceptive.
You guys should really know the difference.
As this was finally unraveling yesterday, I took a few minutes to make my Ten Tips for your next “viral”.
http://gkoya.com/
The danger with “making” a viral is you, the agency, always have to go “too far”: you need to add layers to what you are doing, so it’s not just a veneer. Because if it’s just only ever going to be a façade, why not just do a quirky straight-line campaign instead?
Cheers,
Ben
I feel sorry for ‘Heidi’ I hope she got paid well, not only did she have to do the stills/ video shoot, but endless press calls from around the world in which she had to lie through her teeth about her job and the whole back story. Now she going to lose modelling / tv work and will always be the ‘Jacket girl’. And shes no doubt had to go into hiding for a while now. Hope they were honest about what she was in for in the initial casting.
There are stunts and then there are disasters – this was just a plain disaster…if you have to blatantly lie and compromise your integrity just to get a client results, well it’s really a question of ethics. To me, Naked, Witchery and the jacket girl have questionable ethics – pretty low stunt just to make a buck. I personally am considering boycotting Witchery…
http://www.news.com.au/courier.....02,00.html
Check out part 2.
I’m not sure if it’s all that bad,
People are fooled on the internet on a daily basis.
I now know that Witchery makes men’s jackets – I didn’t know that before. I’m probably more tempted to look at one.
The only false advertising claim Witchery may have made is that the jacket is soooo good, good looking models will pick it up and take it home. and this could still be true, has anyone bought one and left it lying around yet to test the hypothesis.
After hearing more about this, Naked have really stuffed up, sorry guys, you went from being my favourite agency in Australia to somewhere near the bottom.
Why the witch hunt anyway? Brands have spent decade’s, nay centuries, developing cunning lies about product.
You know…?
I’m thinking of designing my own t-shirt:
“I’d rather this t than viral Witchery jackets !”
or how about:
“Eeeuuuw! Witchery are known to pass off virals…”
Like Jas, I too feel sorry for Heidi/Lilly. She has become the face of this fiasco.