Olla Condom Ad: Cute & disruptive, but a bit soft
Olla Condoms recently launched a campaign that sends men on Facebook friend requests from their soon-to-be-born babies. My opinion: It’s a cute campaign idea, but has no legs.
It’s disruptive and might increase consideration of the brand by the individuals that they contacted, but the opportunity for ongoing engagement or amplification is pretty minimal, IMHO. People might share, if they find it humorous, but that will be rather limited, making it just a little better than a banner ad…maybe even worse, when it comes to visibility.
I’m all for pushing the limits and even violating FB terms in small ways (creating fake profiles is a violation), when it makes sense, but I encourage my team (iCrossing Live Media Studio video) to come up with ideas that not only get a snicker, but also inspire an ongoing relationship and/or conversation. Mashable’s coverage below gives a good overview of the campaign and includes a video. I would take their poll results with a grain of salt, though. It’s Mashable, which means that it’s mostly industry folks patting each other on the back, rather than a true gauge of how consumers feel about it. That’s my two cents, but I’d be interested to see a case study with results. What do you think?
An advertising campaign from Olla Condoms, which sends Facebook users unsolicited friend requests from their yet-to-be-born sons, has attracted plenty of attention — but is also a violation of Facebook policy.
The promo video (see below) for the “Unexpected Babies” campaign from Brazilian agency Age Isobar details the ad’s concept: Take a male user’s name, create a new profile using that name with “Jr.” tacked on the end, and send a friend request to the unsuspecting user. When he visits his virtual son’s profile, he sees a condom ad from Brazil-based Olla.
Facebook, however, expressly forbids fake profiles. The condom ad campaign appears to violate several policies found under “Registration and Account Security” in Facebook’s Terms. And Facebook’s Help Center even has a section to report fake accounts that “list a fake name” or “don’t represent a real person.”
While fake profiles can sometimes entertain, they more often than not lead to unwanted consequences. For example, earlier this year, one woman unsuccessfully used a fake profile to dig up dirt on her husband — and instead found herself in a fake-murder plot.
What do you think of Olla Condom’s ad campaign? Watch the video below and sound off in our poll.
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