The most controversial advertisements from brands

Getting everyone to talk about your content is one of the prime ambitions of advertising. It generates greater brand awareness, traffic, engagement, and consequently, sales. But in the pursuit of trying to do so, no brand wants to offend a substantially large group of people, especially if some of its target audience falls into that bracket. But that is exactly what controversies do. Let us have a look at some of the most controversial advertisements from notable brands.

#Mycalvins by Calvin Klein (2016)

Calvin Klein’s advertising approaches have always remained at the center of controversies. As society starts to accept their work, they come up with even more controversial advertisement campaigns. In 2016, they effectively outdid their often creepy advertising by featuring models that looked extremely young. Evidently, the campaign was followed by loads of comments, mostly negative and against it.

#Weaccept by Airbnb (2017)

Airbnb entered the nationality, race, and political talks with their ‘#Weaccept’ campaign in 2017. The campaign reacted to the travel ban imposed by the Trump government by featuring faces of people from different backgrounds and cultures. It aimed at showing that everyone, irrespective of their race, religion, and nationality, should be accepted in the United States of America. A lot of people gave positive feedbacks after looking at the commercial.

Kendal Jenner’s Pepsi advertisement (2017)

It featured the model and TV star, Kendal Jenner, who in the advert, was shown ditching her photoshoot and joining a crowd of protesters who held vague and absurd posters. Following that, she offers a can of Pepsi to a police officer that he accepts, signifying that peace in the world is restored. This advertisement managed to produce lots of controversy and Pepsi had to remove it from the television channels and its own YouTube channel.