Colgate's Big Mistake

Anyone remember Doctor Rabbit? He was part of a campaign Colgate ran back in 1998 to help kids get educated about taking care of their teeth. Basically featured a cartoon rabbit going around the world in a hot air balloon talking to kids.

I wish I could find the original video, but the internet has recently undergone a purge of all doctor rabbit related videos. And that's the reason I am posting today.

Doctor Rabbit had recently come into fame on youtube, as a recurring star of the youtube poop. A youtube poop is basically a video that splices bits from old video games, and cartoons into a rather crude and senseless final product. Here's one that I found.



So Colgate decides that it's not to happy with having a bunch of immature adolescents mocking their creation, so they decide to go to youtube and remove every doctor rabbit related video they could find. The one posted above was one of the only one's left.

I'm sorry, but what the hell?

I really, honestly, don't understand this. They have managed, without even trying, to get consumers to interact with their advertising. People love Doctor Rabbit now. OK sure, they love to hate that dumb bunny. But isn't the fact that they are taking the product and spending hours looking at it, thinking about it, and sharing it, worth something?

Hell, I'd say any advertiser should be proud to have their work be so integrated into a social media niche as Doctor Rabbit was.

They handled the problem like whiny children, and everyone lost.