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The truth will out

Posted in Advertising, Creative, Branwell Johnson, Latest reporters' blogs August 1st, 2007 by Branwell Johnson

It’s been a constant theme for weeks now – brand trust and how it is easily won and lost. Examples have been piling up like a car crash - from ITV and BBC to L’Oreal and now you can add Morrison’s to the list – but there’s the added twist that it’s the watchful blog community exposing a deceit.

It’s not exactly up there with Watergate…. Morrison’s new ad campaign - featuring Denise Van Outen and devised by Delaney Lund Knox Warren – is in a genuine Welsh coffee house called Sospan that the advertiser wants us to believe is next door to a Morrison’s, when it is fact 30 miles away.

We all know that advertising has a kind of poetic licence when it comes to landscapes and settings. But that’s not the point. While feature films might be able to get away with vague geography the public expects advertising to be truthful. The news of the Morrison faux pas came due to eagle-eyed TV viewers from the area posting on the internet. One posting reads “More fakery! We should storm Morrison’s.”

Production teams and creative departments must now be aware that everything is under scrutiny and what may seem a mere trifling detail could blow up in their face. Not to mention the client’s. Did Morrison’s marketing team even know that Sospan was not in the same town as the store? Not that it matters – all those connected have been tainted. Expect more such cries of “aha – caught you out” from the internet…