The world of advertising is a place where there is absolutely NO room for errors and brands are in a rat race to strive for perfection and get consumers rooting for their products and services over those of their competitors.

Marketing and advertising strategies can result in so many ways, campaigns can end up becoming a viral hit, can end up having no effect on the audience whatsoever or can go viral for all the wrong reasons and attract the unwanted kinda publicity. But you know what they say, ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’, but could that be the case with Nissan Dubai latest #TakeOutTheFake campaign?

Nissan Dubai has launched a campaign where they are attempting to raise awareness for fake spare car parts, and are targetting celebrities such as Ellen, Demi Lovato and Robert Downey, Jr. for their #TakeOutTheFake campaign.

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A quick look at the other tweets posted by Nissan Dubai showed that they didn’t even reply to them. This is likely due to the volume of mentions they receive each day, that it would have been buried in the conversation volume.

The clever yet risky campaign has received a ton of backlash by people of the interwebs

Netizens have called the company out on their bad choice of marketing.

The internet is full of fakes. So, why not do something about it? In partnership with #TwitterAudit, we decided to clean our profile of fake followers. Do the same and join us! Fake followers are like fake spare car parts; they look real, but they aren’t. #TakeOutTheFake pic.twitter.com/AODUcAAchB

— Nissan Dubai (@NissanDubai) February 12, 2020

Nissan Dubai called out on the American YouTuber Casey Neistat on his ‘fake’ followers as a part of their campaign and it did not go down well with the American vlogger

Worst marketing campaign in 2020 pic.twitter.com/eN7DA7KPBE

— Anas Al-Madanat (@AnasMadanat) March 13, 2020

From the auto brand’s account, it seems as if the #TakeOutTheFake campaign that called out high-profile celebs on their followers started around the end of February

https://twitter.com/NissanDxb/status/1236591488294928384

Tweeps are marking this as the “worst social media campaign ever”

this is the worst social media campaign i’ve ever seen in my life, what maniac gave the green light for this?

— miso (@misbahchowdhury) March 13, 2020

The creative yet risky campaign was reshared and made into a conversation for all the wrong reasons as it was said to spread more negativity than positivity

The campaign is getting attention but I'm really not sure it is positive for you

— Andy (@andygib) March 13, 2020

Tweeps ran a ‘fake followers audit’ on the Nissan Dubai’s official Twitter account and shared a snapshot of the results on Twitter tagging the auto brand

Who wants to start a marketing company with me and help @NissanDxb get actual followers with better marketing campaigns? I feel genuinely sad and embarrassed for them. Which company is ripping them off? #takeoutthefake @marketingdude @theregos @MaliZomg https://t.co/qHCfm1CMmm

— Samie Tariq (@SamieTariq) March 13, 2020