Samsung Apologises For ‘Night Owls’ Ad That Shows Woman Running Alone At 2 AM After Internet Backlash
In the past, we’ve seen quite some ads being taken down and apologised for by companies who’ve offended people without meaning to (at least, I hope they didn’t intend to). Joining the list is the tech-giant Samsung. For their recent, ‘Night Owls’ campaign, Samsung aired an advertisement that showed a woman running alone at 2 am. However, their ad received quite the criticism from some of the women’s running groups and safety campaigners who believed that the ad was unrealistic. After their claims, the tech giant apologised to the viewers for the same.
Samsung, for their ‘Night Owls’ campaign, showed an ad for the Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Buds, wherein a woman gets up at 2 am to go for a run on the deserted streets of a city. The ad wasn’t received well by women’s running groups and people campaigning for the safety of women as they believe that the ad was “unrealistic” and “insensitive to ongoing conversations about women’s safety”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnEzVb_AAiI
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In fact, a women’s safety group by the name of Reclaim These Streets, describe Samsung’s ad as “tone-deaf” with respect to the death of a 23-year-old woman – Ashling Murphy – who was killed while she was on a run in January. Her death started the #shewasonarun as many women came out and shared their stories about being harassed while they were on a run.
As per reports, Esther Newman, who is the editor of Women’s Running magazine and podcast spoke to Radio 1 Newsbeat and said that the advertisement by Samsung was not representing the truth in any manner. She said, “ Women don’t run at that time because we are too scared to… It’s really shocking. I don’t know any woman who would be running at 02:00 in the morning, Certainly not in a city.” It wasn’t just her, some even called out the tech company on Twitter for its ad.
Hey @samsung how realistic do you think your advert of a woman running at 2am is on a scale of one to are you mad?
This couldn’t be further from the experience of pretty much all women, especially wearing headphones! Assuming the only women involved in the making was the actress— Lucy (@InCockKneeToe) April 21, 2022
Samsung Galaxy doing an advert for a fitness watch where a woman goes running alone? At night? You have to laugh
— Mollie Goodfellow (@hansmollman) April 23, 2022
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After all the backlash, Samsung clarified the air saying that it wasn’t their intention to be insensitive about women’s safety. It further stated, “We apologise for how this may have been received… The ‘Night Owls’ campaign was designed with a positive message in mind: to celebrate individuality and freedom to exercise at all hours.”
According to the stats collected from the Office for National Statistics, half of all women have felt unsafe at some point or the other while walking alone in the dark and at night – and running is no exception.
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