“She’s Seen More Ceilings Than Michelangelo” Bold Advert Lands Coca-Cola In Soup
“She’s Seen More Ceilings Than Michelangelo” Bold Advert Lands Coca-Cola In Soup
The not-so-brutally refreshing advert pulled off by Coca-Cola in Ireland has put the company in a spot of bother. The Ad Campaign by the fizzy brand Sprite intended to target the male audience of Irish Website JOE.ie but the refresher has turned sour.
“She’s seen more Ceilings than Michelangelo” and “You’re not popular, you’re easy”, is prompting slut-shaming. These seemingly obscene, sexist one-liners have sparked a major social media backlash, since Wednesday, after it was released.
Coca-cola launched the campaign, aimed primarily at a male audience, earlier this year and claimed it was “celebrating those with guts to tell it like it is.”
It seems all hell has broken loose on the brand. The kind of social media wrath Sprite has been facing can be gauged by this tweet;
Seriously @Sprite? Need to revise your internal policies. This ain’t #BrutallyRefreshing but only #BrutallyOffensive pic.twitter.com/QfeaCUXEkD
— Cristiana De Lia (@CristianaDeLia) August 3, 2016
Two degrading and disgusting ads by Sprite spotted this week. #BrutallyRefreshing ??#TerribleAdCampaign more like pic.twitter.com/stRTocZjs4
— ♡ Brenna ♡ (@BrennaKeane) July 22, 2016
Sprite: “We’d love more arseholes to buy our drinks”
Marketer: “Consider it done!”#BrutallyRefreshing @Sprite pic.twitter.com/J3gD9e4Ugy
— Kate Gilson (@kategilson) August 3, 2016
Dear Coke, sexist is not ‘edgy’ ?- Report: Coca-Cola apologizes for #BrutallyRefreshing ads in Ireland https://t.co/b8VfFDdZ4W
— Rickey Bevington (@rickeybevington) August 4, 2016
However, the company later apologized. A Coca-Cola spokeswoman told BBC, “We’re sorry for any offence caused by the #BrutallyRefreshing Sprite campaign in Ireland, which was intended to provide an edgy but humorous take on a range of situations.”
The spokesperson added, “Since its introduction in Ireland, Sprite has been associated with individuality and self-expression, and we have always been committed to ensuring the highest standard of advertising, we recognize that on this particular occasion the content did not meet this standard and we apologize. The campaign has now come to an end and the advert in question will not appear again.”
The campaign got some unkind attention, which was flagged by radio presenter Louise McSharry- having 14,900 followers on Twitter. He shared a screenshot of the offensive campaign on Twitter, social media channels, which have since been flooded with adverse comments as ‘slut-shaming on a global level’.
SERIOUSLY with this takeover in 2016? pic.twitter.com/q5TBk5AmdL
— Louise McSharry (@louisemcsharry) August 2, 2016
Sooner, in response to McSharry’s tweet, Paddy McKenna, editor of JOE.ie, apologized and disassociated the website from the advertisement. He said, “Anyone who has read the site knows that this does not reflect JOE’s brand values. It shouldn’t have been there and it was removed as soon as it was flagged.”