A little girl with a banana, that’s all it took for Audi to spark outrage on Twitter.
On the 2nd of August,2020, Audi’s official Twitter handle posted this advertising campaign for their new model RS-4, showcasing a little girl, all dressed up in casual attire, holding a half-peeled banana while leaning on the grille of an Audi. Prima facie, this campaign looks really normal and/or even cute but let’s decipher the semiotics of it one by one, based on the comments by the people, that caused the Twitter birds to chirp in anger.
The little girl holding a banana was perceived in a very negative manner as the shape of a banana is a well-known phallic symbol and associating such indecent signs with a child irked the people on Twitter. Another thing you’ll notice is that once the person is in the car, he/she won’t be able to see the child in the front, which led to a strong argument online, especially by the parents, as this representation contradicts the safety of a child by showing that it’s cool to be in front of a vehicle like that and lean on the grille, which questioned the safety values the brand is trying to portray. While a lot of people ranted about how the pose was “Provocative”, there were people who pointed out this highly common adaptation, of cars and sports being associated with “Male lust”.
Audi since then, in a 3-tweet long post, has apologized and accepted the fact that they made a mistake and they were not aware of how this campaign got released but looking at their response, even while apologizing, they managed to emphasize all the highlights of the product i.e. the Audi RS-4 and they turned it into a sales pitch, which from a marketer's perspective was a good move but the apology was not that impactful as it could have been.
How to fix this? This advert, even though it's not that big of a deal but has upset a lot of people online and thus can be fixed by simply adding a father in the picture with the same pose and action as it will show how it is a family car and the person driving the car is outside enjoying with his daughter. The banana now will not look bad, being a father figure present with her, and just like that, the advert could have been fixed.