Stop Press

Last week Indian Press was after the Prime Ministers Office and also on a Minstry for publishing a full page press advert on Girl Child education with a wrong image of a Pakistani Army General.This indeed is a big blunder and few scribes did further research on the ad agency which created the the advertisement. However, the blunder no doubt is unacceptable what is important is to probe on why did this happen?

No federal departments are ad savvy similar to FMCG's or banks and I beleive the honorable minister was releasing her first advert in her 30+ year career and thanks to the blunder sure she would lose her job in the next cabinet reshuffle

Noticed some thing very similar here in Dubai but this time a large centre spread double page ad from the the largest bank in UAE promoting their new brand with a tag line - where the world comes to bank - the blunderthis time being next to their logo they even carried a competitive banks building along with their logo. Though it was too small to be noticed but then it is indeed a major blunder. The visual looks quite cliched as well with a photoshop work showing all major landmarks across the globe to connect to their tag line and no relevanceto the new brand or its core pillars

Who needs to own up? We cannot shoot the messenger and in this case the media agency or the publishers but definitelythe onus should be on the communications team ( both at client and agencies end) which vetted this prior publishing. As some times the agency does place dummy visuals till such time the client approves the concept and the text and in the hurry of meeting the publishers deadline I am positive this would have been ignored

However, other than getting compliance and the unit head to cross check the visual it is always important for the marketingteam to fine comb the creative before pressing 'ok' from their outlooks.

Corporate campaigns should reflect on the brand and messaging should be anchored around their core pillars - than being too cliched.