Just recently i posted “#Sg Haze at Marketing’s best”. Of course, this Mc Donald’s ad was up but i didn’t think it was particularly funny or fascinating (read: it was not mooketing blog worthy)

The very same Ad in the newspaper has drawn much criticism from the people of Singapore asserting that the ad campaign is really done in bad humor.

Here is a glimpse of their saving face PR speech: “We share the concerns of Singaporeans and were equally surprised to see PSI levels hit record highs overnight. The ad in question was designed and placed when conditions were not as severe, and we agree that in this current context the advertisement is inappropriate. We apologise.”

An interesting lesson i learnt from Guerilla Marketing Remix by Jay Conrad Levinson is that an ad can be funny once or twice or even three times but the tenth time, its simply annoying. Therefore, don’t make something funny for the sake of being funny.

Humor is a double edged sword. This ad doesn’t amplify Mac Donald’s core marketing message (unlike True Fitness). To me, this ad lacked both – Humor and Taste. (Quite literally so).