For the Hanukkah holiday, Roladin, the largest confectionery chain in Israel launched an advertising campaign under the title "FOLLOW YOUR ART " for this year's donut collection. Roladin is considered a strong brand in this field and is known for coming up with creative and innovative advertising concepts that position donuts as works of art. Unlike previous campaigns, this campaign caused an uproar on the social network. Many surfers protested and called for a boycott because they saw it as objectifying women and comparing them to baked goods. The ad shows a donut that after a few seconds opens and you see a woman with body paintings and makeup through a collaboration with the international artist Johannes Stutter.
This protest raises several important insights:
1- To build a community of loyal customers to the brand, it is crucial to building
a trust bond. Trust is built by demonstrating respect, caring, and empowerment and touching on painful points and current issues that occupy them. Studies and empirical evidence have proven that reinforcing stereotypes and perpetuating offensive and unwanted associations is harmful to the relationship of trust and resonance with the brand as well as its profitability.
2- To maintain and strengthen the relationship of trust with the target market and its long-term loyalty, one must always listen to it and stand up for its needs and desires and the changes that occur in its environment, and this can be done through research and market surveys. If Roladin had done this, it could have understood the sensitivity in the connection between a body and the woman for the consumption product of food.
3- A creative and innovative advertising concept will not necessarily lead to the strengthening of the brand identity and success in sales, therefore before the release of each advertisement it is necessary to evaluate its effectiveness and relevance in front of the target market. Roladin could have used focus groups to test the quality of the advertisement before uploading it to various media channels.
4- Digital tools, especially social networks, have given consumers huge and effective power (ammunition) of visibility, expression, and demonstrativeness. This power can elevate brands and can also bring down other brands.
5- The women's market, which today is considered a significant market in making consumption decisions, has become a market with a strong voice that is not ready to accept any more dictates and brainwashing, and stands for its right to be heard and seen as human beings and not as objects and sexual objects for sales promotion, therefore the provocative advertising model is no longer acceptable and damages the trust of customers.
6- The women's market appreciates the care and empowerment and long-term commitment of the brands - one of the proofs of this is the Unilever company which announced on 10/1/22 that the Dove brand enjoyed an impressive growth of 8%.
In sum, nothing is more efficient than creative advertising. It is captivating, memorable, longer lasting, works with fewer media spending, and builds a loyal community faster. But today, the target market and loyal customers expect the brands to take responsibility for the messages they convey on the media channels.