The holiday season brings with it a ton of new advertising, all designed to capture the consumer's attention during the busiest shopping season of the year. Sometimes announcers score points; on other occasions, their suggestions elicit negative comments. This year, Tanguay's advertising is anything but unanimous, so much so that the retailer has even decided to change it.
The scene takes place in a typical family during Christmas celebrations. As everyone goes about their business, snoring becomes more and more noticeable.
When everyone arrives in the living room, they notice that the youngest of the family is pressing the buttons on the armchair where Grandpa is dozing, turning his snoring into a Christmas tune. We easily recognize Vive le vent.
Satisfied with his success, the boy with his broad smile and missing teeth turns to his family and asks: Do any of you have special wishes?
While this advertisement is intriguing at first glance with its humorous tone, the frequency of its broadcast has ultimately angered many Internet users who have commented on social networks.
Is there a more unpleasant advertisement than that of Tanguay? She is also disrespectful to her elders, says one of them.
I can no longer listen to the commercials with the man snoring in his chair, says another.
Host Alex Perron also wrote about the X Network (formerly Twitter) (New Window)that the Tanguay advertising with the snoring seems aggressive. His message drew nearly a hundred comments, most of them negative.
A version… less loud
Contacted by Radio-Canada, Tanguay admits to receiving some negative comments, as well as several positive ones. The Montreal agency LG2 designed the advertising campaign.
We play with self-irony. We have thirty seconds to grab attention. We also play with codes. A father, a grandfather falling asleep in the living room is an image we know. However, the goal was not to appeal to a specific age group or older people, assures Geneviève Langlois, partner and executive creative director at LG2, in an interview with Radio-Canada.
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Tanguay lowered the volume of his snoring commercials.
Photo: Screenshot Tanguay advertising
But the agency admits that the grandfather's snoring may have irritated viewers, especially because of the repetition of the ad. In recent days the agency has decided to modify it and offers a new version… with less snoring. We heard you, Tanguay assures at the beginning of the ad.
In the new version, we'll see the sound decrease at the bottom of the TV and eventually increase again at the end of the commercial, a way for Tanguay to laugh at the situation.
With the team, we said to ourselves, this is something we can talk about. It is a concept that stands out from the crowd and therefore attracts more attention. So we decided to play and laugh at the concept so we made a little gag about it. What's good is talking to the consumer. “We listened to their needs and their criticism,” explains Ms. Langlois.
It's harder to play with stereotypes
Communications strategist Louis Aucoin noted the strong response to this advertising campaign.
I notice that advertising can shock but also make you laugh. It seems that the people who are in one camp or another are not the same age. But I have to say that I was surprised when I first heard it. “I said to myself, 'Okay, we've gone into a sensitive area,'” he said in an interview with Radio-Canada.
According to him, it is becoming increasingly difficult for advertisers to strike a humorous tone, especially when conveying stereotypes.
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Communications strategist Louis Aucoin.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Jean-Simon Fabien
This isn't the first time we've seen older characters. This isn't the first time we've seen her sleeping. But this is the first time she's been made fun of. And that is being discussed. Obviously this generation, the baby boomers, does not recognize themselves in this figure. There is a kind of rejection of this image.
He recalls that in advertising we generally see active seniors leading busy lives, especially in retirement homes.
There we see a completely different picture. We make fun of a stereotype, the one about the snoring grandpa, but we notice that it is less well received than before. But I don't think advertising lacks goodwill, he adds.
According to Stéphane Mailhiot, president of Havas, advertisers always take a risk when using humor.
We can use all sorts of methods, including humor, to get attention. But it can sometimes become annoying or recurring. When it comes to humorous advertising, you have to pay attention to its media weight, he explains.
Ultimately, do advertisers want us to talk about their advertising campaign at all costs? For better or for worse, as long as we talk about it?
I'm not a big fan of “talk about it, talk about it, talk about it”… That's not desirable in the long run. It's not just about getting attention: it's better to get the right attention, he believes.
Same story from Louis Aucoin.
“Given the size of their advertising budget, I’m not sure Tanguay should value the bad comments,” he concludes.
Hateful advertising?
One of the harshest criticisms came from the Beau Dommage group's main lyricist, Pierre Huet, who criticized Tanguay's proposal, which he considered despicable. His Facebook post in turn sparked several scathing comments about the ad.
I think this is one of the worst ads I've ever seen. It surprises me about Tanguay because their last ad, which competitors like IKEA also saw, was very funny, amusing and daring, he says.
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The author Pierre Huet
Photo: Radio-Canada / Christian Côté
For him, the situation in which the grandfather finds himself is not shocking in itself, but it is the work as a whole that worries him.
I find it entirely an insult to intelligence. It's not funny and it doesn't make us want to buy the chair. So what is the goal? he asks himself.
Mr. Huet remembers that good advertising can create a deep connection, for example in the case of Pepsi.
When they did the commercial with Claude Meunier, I honestly said to myself: I'm going to drink Pepsi because the commercial makes me laugh. They surprised us and Quebecers liked it, he says.
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Claude Meunier brought rain and shine to the era of Pepsi advertising.
Photo: screenshot