Recently, Heyah a mobile phone company in Poland recently ran an ad that featured Vladimir Lenin as a cartoon character. This outraged many older polish citizens because they remember the brutal Soviet Regime that Lenin was apart of.
Heyah was counting on a younger crowd to love the campaign because to the younger Poles this character was merely a character. They are to young to understand the cultural background of Lenin.
According to Luckasz Kaminski the director of the Institute of National Remembrance;
"The social effects of this campaign could also be more dangerous because it is addressed to young people, among whom it builds positive associations with Lenin"
Salon magazine reported that a consumer rights group stated that; "it would also gladly pay for history lessons for the members of the board of the phone company and the advertising agency that it used." Many Poles probably felt this way and that the company did not understanding the relevance to the cartoon character they used.
Heyah also used television commercials in their campaign and with that used the same Lenin cartoon character. This commercial led to more backlash from the Polish activists and the community.
In this video, Lenin states a revolution is taking place in front of you. which could be a reference to his regime. Heyah only wanted customers to take advantage of the new offers. Poles did not like that idea and were outraged and protested this campaign. Poles did not see the need to use a cartoon of a man who killed millions of people not matter what youare trying to sell.
Since this campaign created so much backlash the company decided it was only right to pull the plug. BBC reported that; "Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa SA, which owns Heyah, said it was withdrawing the campaign out of respect for the wishes of its customers."
The Company released a official statement saying: "In view of the unfavorable comments that have been expressed against the campaign, as well as the emergence of ideological threads in the discussion, we have decided to end [the campaign],”
I believe that the company should not have tried in the first place to use a character that did so much damage to Poland. They definitely did not think before they ran this campaign and for that they deserved the backlash.