Ignorant Culture: A Controversial Phenomenon in the Marketing World

Who remembers the tragic ending promotions for the film remake “A Business Proposal”? From a branding perspective, this case is quite interesting to discuss because one of the actors, Abidzar, made a controversial statement which drew criticism from netizens. 

However, what if it turns out that Abidzar was deliberately "made" into a blunder by Falcon as a marketing tactic with the concept: "Bad marketing is still marketing"?  Great theory, but remember “The minute you don't have a back-up plan, you've admitted you're prepared to fail”. Likewise with this remake film which only got 6,894 viewers on the first day of screening and was even affected by the "Ignorant Culture" phenomenon.

Come on, let's examine this marketing conspiracy theory from the perspective of Branding, Public Relations, and Consumer Psychology.

A Business Cancel Culture: The Beginning of the Story

"I watched episode one. I just decided to stop because in the end this is a character that I will create myself with the director," Abidzar's statement that he admitted that he had not watched the original drama drew great criticism. Maybe Abidzar wants to show creativity or a personal touch in his remake. 

🚨 “So, he doesn't understand the real story?” 

🚨 “If he doesn't watch it, how can he respect the essence of his Korean dramas?” 

🚨 “So this is not a remake, but a random version?”

Twitter and Instagram were filled with criticism, to the point where some parties called for a boycott of the film. Calls to Cancel Culture exploded several weeks before the film was released. 

Instead of apologizing or providing clarification that could defuse the situation, they instead released an open letter that sounded like guilt-tripping netizens, roughly saying “Why don't you support the local film industry? There are a lot of crew who took part in this film“

Now, not only K-Drama fans are angry, but also people who were previously neutral. What happened next was not a bigger explosion of anger, but something more dangerous: Ignorant Culture.

Ignorant Culture? The brandingteam's Nightmare!

Cancel culture still provides an opportunity to turn things around because people are still interested in talking about, even defending or discussing further. But, when netizens enter the ignorant culture phase, they not only stop being angry, but really don't care anymore. For example:

🚨 People are still talking about McDonald's after the boycott, because there are pros and cons. 

🚨 People still debate Starbucks when there is a scandal, because the brand has certain values. 

The point is, if it iscancelled, there is still hype. There is still debate. There is still a chance of redemption. But what if you ignore it? Game over. 

Usually, even if it's controversial, people still watch it just to see how bad it is. But A Business Proposalremake was completely abandoned. People prefer to re-watch Korean versions of dramas which are trending again on Netflix.

Maybe Falcon was trying to create negative hype, but the result? Complete failure! Netizens don't just don't care—they're downright indifferent. The remake film was broadcast with plummeting ratings and few audiences, and several cinemas were even forced to withdraw it.

So, how do you avoid ignorant culture?

Ever heard of Brand Ambassador Puma – Marc Cucurella who threw away his Puma shoes during a match because they were slippery? The public reaction was quite negative because the quality of the product was deemed not to match what was advertised. However, Puma managed to take advantage of this moment by releasing the campaign “It's Not How You Slip, It's How You Bounce Back.”

In the campaign, Puma displays a video where there is a silhouette of a person with long hair similar to Cucurella slipping behind. Meanwhile, Cucurella herself looked proud standing next to the “Caution Wet Floor” sign, with her Puma shoes. 

We agree that Puma's move to utilize this incident for their campaign is quite a unique strategy. High risk, really... but this is an example of the implementation of the concept "bad marketing is still marketing" which has been successfully executed well.

If you were Falcon's marketing team, what would you do when faced with a situation like this?

Author: Raceka Diva