foodpanda MY 'Pollywood' ad: Is there a road to recovery?

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Foodpanda Malaysia's Bollywood-inspired Pollywood video on YouTube was called out for not featuring Indian talents and for appropriating Indian culture. A quick check by A+M at 11 am today saw that the video was unlisted but it has since been relisted again.

The music video which coped flak was created as a teaser for its campaign titled #TakkanTakTahu. However, the bite sized ad taken as a standalone ad by many, was thought to be "poorly conceived", "stereotypical", and "not representative of Indian culture in general" by many netizens in Malaysia.

While the video garnered more than 21k views on YouTube at the time of writing, many viewers shared their displeasure around the content prompting Foodpanda to apologise and explain that the video was not supposed to be a Deepavali ad that many thought it to be. Moreover, it added that it had never intended to cause any discomfort to consumers.

According to Meltwater’s statistics, there has been a 1,012 increase (233%) in mentions of foodpanda Malaysia compared to the previous period. Majority of the conversations were on Twitter, followed by blogs, news and Reddit. Some of the top keywords were "whole foodpanda ad", "raya", "sense", "indians", and "same logic".

Given how quickly consumers' attention spans are dwindling, it is understandable why many brands are now creating bite-sized teaser content to capture audience’s attention and amplify campaigns. However, this also leaves room for ads to be misinterpreted when not viewed as a whole.

And we all know, that when consumers misinterpret a campaign or an ad messaging, it could lead to dire consequences given the rise of cancel culture today. Casey Loh, creative chief at The Clan, said with cancel culture being a common theme today, it is especially important for brands to practice caution in setting the right strategy in place. Of course, this should not lead to simply rolling out bland creatives just to be safe.

"Brands have a responsibility to be sensitive to the public and need to practice restraint. They have to practice sensitivity to the public’s opinion," he explained. Nonetheless, no brand is really safe from cancel culture, so the only way to ensure that a brand stays true to the course of being creative and sensitive enough, is by staying true to itself, Loh added.

"To stand out, brands need to be bold but also know their audience inside out," he said, adding with any campaign, brands need to prepare and measure every outcome and eventuality, and react quickly and sincerely.

Be Strategic's chief strategist, Ashvin Anamalai, said that in his view, foodpanda's latest video is "no misinterpretation, only ignorance". He added that "when in the wrong, a proper apology is only suitable".

"[Ads are] amazingly powerful, and when people are exposed to them, ads have the ability to spread incredible messages - or in this case, an incredibly poor one about appropriating someone’s culture and absolutely bastardising it," he said, adding:

In communications, it is very clear cut; even if you don't mean ill intent, any offensive ad is still your fault.

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Does your recovery statement even matter?

The consumer-brand interaction has certainly evolved during the social era, with consumers expecting brands to be more approachable and have a personality of their own.

"Let’s accept the reality that anything that is social by design, made for the social era, can be interpreted in multiple ways," Sailesh Wadhwa, chief strategist of Edelman Malaysia, said.

According to him, social media, to a large extent, has democratised the entire brand-consumer interaction, where brands co-create and not control their narrative with the audiences. While brands get a fair share of opportunities to correct perceptions, there will always be people who are critical of the content they consume. However, Wadhwa said this is where brands need to come across as real as possible in the virtual world.

Adding to the matter, he explained that while a recovery statement definitely matters, a brand's social persona and its actions with purpose are extremely critical in winning back the fence-sitters. In addition to a recovery statement, clarification and an apology, are crucial to pivot the content strategy to win back the "naysayers".

Meanwhile, Syed Nasir, business chief at The Clan, said despite the timing and creative choices that went wrong in foodpanda's Malaysia’s campaign, its "justification and defending" of the ad might not have sat well with some.

Citing Watsons as an example, Syed added its "Legenda Cun Raya" campaign portraying a "blackface" lady as unattractive, was poorly executed and culturally insensitive. However, the company acknowledged its mistake, apologised, and came back stronger.

While a recovery statement is a start to showing the audience that the company is owning up to the mistake, Be Strategic's Anamalai was of the view that the statement alone cannot be a solution. According to him, what matters more is to actually re-evaluate internal processes for content creation and approvals, with input from a diverse group in order to prevent making more tone-deaf content.

The industry must band together to evolve the diversity agenda because it is clearly an issue that needs to be focused on.

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