Oops! Another yuletide blunder.
Ever cracked a joke and had nobody laugh?
Chances are that no one understood the joke or it was a bit offensive. The latter is true for one popular supermarket’s marketing for their quirky ham bags.
‘Tis the season to be jolly but in a bid to infuse some Christmas cheer into the holiday season, the famous retail chain found out through trial and error that not every holiday pun hits a homerun.
Kmart Australia’s recent release of a Christmas-themed shopping bag featuring the mischievous slogan, ‘Merry Ham-Mas’, backfired even though the intentions behind it were lighthearted and meant to be playful and attention-grabbing.
It did in fact grab the attention of the public. But not in the way they expected it to.
Holiday humour gone wrong
Imagine a happy pig wearing a Santa hat and a sack decorated with holly berries. Adorable, huh? Customers who came into contact with the ‘Merry Ham-Mas’ bags, begged to differ.
The unfortunate ‘pun-intended’, ‘Merry Ham-Mas’ bag that Kmart Australia decided to remove from its shelves made headlines in the United States when British-American comedian John Oliver claimed that the holiday season had begun quite too early following the outcry that it resembled the terrorist organisation, Hamas.
The Last Week Tonight host stated: “It feels like Ham-mas starts a little earlier every year, doesn’t it? One day it’s Ham-oween, the next, your neighbour’s hanging up Ham-Mas light” he joked as he roasted the store on television.
The objective was innocent fun, to incorporate the joy of Christmas with the tradition of feasting on ham throughout the time of the festive season. Unluckily, the approach taken to communicate didn’t age well as their attempt at wordplay triggered criticism from the greater public.
Social media backlash
Almost immediately after the bags hit the supermarket shelves, the floodgates of offence and disapproval from various quarters opened wide. The reaction of consumers and their comments weren’t anything near jolly as critics expressed their concerns, arguing that the slogan appeared to be insensitively advertised, bearing in mind the association with religious practices and traditions and mostly the fact that this festive bag that was intended to store ham in the fridge may look like it was promoting the Hamas terror group.
John Oliver played a video clip featuring Brooke Boney from Nine announcing Kmart’s decision to stop selling the poorly branded Christmas ham bag in its stores.
“Yeah, that is too similar,” jested Oliver
“It’d be like naming your child John Blaine-gacy, it’s too close for comfort.”
“But spare a thought for Australian Kmart there, how were they supposed to know that Hamas was going to launch a terrorist attack so close to the ‘Ham-Mas’ season.”
Even though the supermarket claims that their new creation wasn’t in any way put out to make a scene, the Australian Jewish Association was the first to throw a tantrum of fury.
Kmart later issued an apology for the embarrassing error: “We got it wrong on this occasion, and we apologise unreservedly,” a company representative told Politico. The spokesperson went on to say: “When designing this product we clearly didn’t think through all the implications and the product has been removed from sale.”
The calico bag was then withdrawn from sales subsequent to a comment that the Australian Jewish Association wrote to Kmart’s parent company Wesfarmers arguing it “may cause the company some embarrassment”.
Cultural sensitivity concerns
This event proved to be down on Kmart’s luck, and what happened thereafter highlights the thin line between a professional setting and the extent to which what they promote can affect their brand name and reputation significantly.
Christmas time is one of those instances when retail stores make the most out of their marketing and advertising, mostly since it’s an asset to get creative and think out of the box. But it is also a time when people of an assortment of faiths and backgrounds gather to celebrate.
Shopping malls usually go all out and infuse the culture and tradition of Christmas into their sales, but sometimes leveraging cultural symbols for commercial gain can be perceived as disrespectful and ignorant on behalf of the company that is forwarding the message.
The worst that could happen is provoking the public into thinking that a simple festive pun, such as Kmart’s ham bag was indirectly and subtly hinting at the foreign terrorist organisation who have murdered over 1,200 innocent civilians.
Navigating humour in marketing
Australian Jewish Association President David Adler said he wanted “to give credit to Kmart management as they acted very quickly”. He continued to say: “It’s not normal times; there are people that will distort things and will harass the Jewish community.”
Adler informed The West Australian that there could be other things that are more important than a simple joke that went wrong, but even the smallest slip-ups may have a profound impact: “Of course, there are bigger issues to be addressed, dealing with the actual terrorism is important, but one of the other things we are dealing with is propaganda.”
Humour, even though taken lightly, can play out to be an influential instrument that can strike a wrong chord in the minds of many if approached carelessly. When fostering a connection between a brand and its customers, marketers should take careful steps and measurements when considering the potential interpretation and reactions by the public to their campaigns.
The ‘Merry Ham-Mas’ bag fiasco acts as a reminder that although comedy may be a useful tool in marketing, it must be used cautiously, particularly around holidays that have strong cultural and religious resonance.
(Tashia Bernardus)