When, oh, when will companies learn that people just aren’t ready for self-deprecating humor in their everyday advertising? Last week, the above image was revealed as a clever new billboard campaign for Dove in the state of New Jersey, and it might blow your minds to learn that people in the Garden State weren’t happy about it. At all. In fact, they were incredibly pissed off, and that’s saying a lot if you think about the reputation that people in New Jersey already have.
According to NJ.com, Dove’s parent company, Unilever, has announced that the billboard idea has been scrapped due to the outcry from people on social media. In fact, Dove’s generic, copy-and-paste Facebook apology to all of the angry people seemed so genuine and sincere that I’ve been crying in a warm bubble bath for the last hour.
“Thank you for your comments. With our ‘Dear New Jersey’ advertisement, Dove deodorant never intended to upset the residents of the state. As a result of your feedback, Dove deodorant will not be moving forward with publishing or displaying this ad.”
So just how bad was the feedback from pissed off New Jersyans? Let’s take our white tank tops off, turn up the Springsteen and read a few comments from Dove’s Facebook page, shall we?
But oddly enough, there are also people who are writing comments of support for Dove, including this fine gentleman:
Oh, New Jerseyans. You don’t hear Floridians like me crying over the mean stuff people write about us. But then, that’s because most of us never learned how to read.