The newly appointed agency for the popular Mexican takeaway Mad Mex contacted media outlets in Sydney this week to let them know The Dictator (Sacha Baron Cohen in character) would be outside its inner-city restaurant. Baron Cohen is currently in Australia promoting his latest film.
Unfortunately, the media weren’t provided with Baron Cohen but instead a pretty bad impersonator. OK, a terrible impersonator.
The trade media dutifully and objectively reported the campaign stunt. Predictably, the mainstream media, having flocked to Mad Mex to capture The Dictator having a burrito, were less kind towards the agency.
Cue industry debate over the time honoured adage ‘any publicity is good publicity’.
Really? In the age of digital media that last bastion of tabloid rhetoric is still getting an airing? Ask BP or Tiger Woods what they think about the power of negative publicity to damage a brand.
Supporters of the agency in question have been quick to defend its campaign, with the rationale that it got people talking, and therefore it was a success.
Putting aside the campaign’s gaping strategic holes for a minute (note the lack of even an attempt at a tenuous link between the Dictator and a Mexican fast food outlet), what happens the next time they put out a media alert, or in fact any of us do, with a legitimate celebrity photo-call?
The only thing this campaign achieved was to erode the agency’s, and the broader industry’s, credibility with the media.
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