Hyundai: "Pipe Job"

Wow.

What a catastrophic error of misjudgement..

Hyundai, working with Innocean Worldwide Europe, have produced an advert that is treading a verrrrry fine line on what is appropriate. See for yourself:

http://adland.tv/commercials/hyundai-pipe-job-2012-60

There has been quite a visceral backlash to the piece, despite Ian Tonkin – Product & Corporate PR Manager, claiming:

"From our perspective it wasn’t meant to go out, we haven’t used it with the intention of advertising and marketing.
I can’t comment further on this. I can send you through a statement that we’ve put together relating to that advert which will give our stance.
Let me just clarify. With the video we’ve taken it down so it won’t be used in any further advertising. It just went up briefly and we’ve taken it down.
It was initially on an official Hyundai channel but we’ve taken down. It was on briefly last week."

Whether or not it was meant for wholesale public release, and whether or not you actually find it funny, one has to ask: what on earth were they thinking? 

Holly Brockwell, an advertising creative herself, has been the lance at the head of the charge with her blogpost: http://copybot.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/an-open-letter-to-innocean-and-hyundai/

"When your ad started to play, and I saw the beautifully-shot scenes of taped-up car windows with exhaust feeding in, I began to shake. I shook so hard that I had to put down my drink before I spilt it. And then I started to cry.

So I’d like to ask that next time you want to tell the world about a new innovation in car design, you think about it for a little bit longer. Think about me. Think about my dad. And the thousands of other suicide victims and the families they left behind.

My dad never drove a Hyundai. Thanks to you, neither will I."

There are many adverts that provoke a reaction from their audience, in many cases that is the aim, but it's hard to argue the case for an advert that drives their fingers into such a sensitive topic.Can they have thought that for every hundred people that laughed, they would counter-balance the one person who took it incredibly badly and vocalised over social media. Certainly, a hundred small chuckles will never drown out one agonised and morally-justifiable wail.

Sometimes it just isn't worth the laugh.