Saatchi & Saatchi, the advertising agency which created the anti-marijuana campaign in Australia, finally broke their silence following the backlash from social media sites.
After days of being ridiculed, Saatchi & Saatchi (S&S) has finally spoken up to hit back at their naysayers. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the ad agency defended that the “campaign’s message is completely lost on adults”.
They claimed that the Stoner Sloth ad which drew a budget of $500,000 has generated a “significant return on investment and involvement” for its client. They also described the whopping amount as a “moderate spend in advertising terms”.
"Two different creative approaches were pre-tested by independent researchers among the teenage target audience, which verified the potential efficacy for this campaign," a rep for the ad agency said.
The campaign has been launched last week, featuring an oversized sloth manifesting the negative effects of marijuana. The series of brief clips, which have since generated 4 million views on Facebook and Youtube, carry a tagline that reads: “You’re worse on weed”.
For days, a slew of negative reactions about Stoner Sloth have surfaced in social media sites -- making #stonersloth a trending topic on Twitter.
“Imagine sitting in a marketing meeting and all agreeing that #stonersloth is a good idea,” a Twitter user commented.
Some even questioned the advertiser’s mental state: “The first thing I thought when I saw #stonersloth was 'how high were the people who made this?'” another post read.
BBC reported that Australia’s National Cannabis Prevention and Information has shown disapproval for the Stoner Sloth campaign. “[This] doesn’t reflect NCPIC views on how cannabis harms campaigns should be approached”, according to a statement released by the organization.
NCPIC said that their organization was involved in the early stages of analysis for the campaign, but pointed that the government took creative license with the actual advertisements.
