When to draw the line in design

Marketing has and always will play an integral role with regards to branding and advertisement. Unfortunately for Trident, the results of a recent series of advertisements published into the UK media shows one of the many faults of market testing. Within the advertisement, a black male with a heavy Caribbean accent became increasingly excited about Trident Gum, and the series of adverts ended in his catch phrase “Mastication for the Nation”. Costly research methods were used, including heavy input from members of various African and Caribbean communities. It had intended on promoting the product as ‘Adventurous, youthful, playful and distinctive. Once released, an innumerable amount of complains were filed, and Cadbury had no choice but to pull the ads.

Unfortunately, research can be thoroughly completed on any design you wish to create and resources can be poured into development and finalization. However, there will always be a dislike harbored towards it. Whether someone views playfulness as poor taste, or elegance as being snooty, there will always be a population who fails to see the perfection that you have attempted to pour into your work. Now, here’s something interesting to think about: Should there come a point where the designer decides that they cannot please everyone? When posed with such a branding problem, Should larger companies (ie: Cadbury) realize that there would always be a small population who finds their work offensive and stick to their hypothesis? What are the repercussions of sticking to your ‘offensive’ ideas?