Criticism
2006 World Cup advertising campaign
Prior to the 2006 World Cup, MediaMarkt launched a campaign, claiming to be the "best fan supplier" ("Bester Fanausrüster"), with commercials showing international football fans shopping at MediaMarkt, showing exaggerated stereotypes of the participating countries, and making fun of the Austria team, which did not qualify. This included a French seductress, Dutch fans smoking marijuana in caravans, or a Saudi haggling - to pay more. German fans were portrayed with big bellies, asking for refrigerators to keep their beer cool, rather than looking for a new TV set.
An additional series of ads, promoting a rebate of €10 for each goal Germany scores (except penalty shoot-outs), showed international soccer fans begging the Germans to score as many goals as possible - against their own team.
When the Netherlands lost to Portugal, MediaMarkt used a quote from a 1980s show featuring Rudi Carrell, a Dutchman who was a long-time TV celebrity in Germany, to express Schadenfreude. A World Cup trophy is shown to grieving Dutch fans in their caravan with the comment "This would have been your prize!".
Polish advertising
In March 2006, the "Poland version" showed moustache-wearing Polish customers praising the shop for "prices deep like Polish soul" before hugging the German sales managers, who looked quite uncomfortable in the bear hugs. Afterwards, one of the Germans pointed out that his watch was still there, and that "The Pole is an honest person, after all". Then, the three men are shown to be missing their trousers.
This commercial caused a scandal in Poland, for the widely known unfounded German stereotype of Poles being thieves. MediaMarkt argued that the advertisements also made fun of other national clichés, including Germans, and none of the other clichés were perceived as negative towards the people they presented. It aimed to exaggerate the cliché of the Polish thief to dismiss it as unjustified prejudice, MediaMarkt claimed.
The store apologised and withdrew the advert after their Polish branch asked to do so, following protests in Poland, a call from the Polish embassy in Berlin and protests from German Polonia.
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Portuguese advertising
In January 2008, coinciding with the opening of its 500th overall store in Europe (located in Alfragide), MediaMarkt launched a campaign presenting a fictitious country called Parvónia ("Dumb Land"), where several characters with Eastern European accents were presented as being from this country, which even has an anthem. A central theme of this campaign presented a Boy Scout as an idiot. This really upset people as many consider Scouts to be responsible and valued members of society. An online petition was created to persuade MediaMarkt to withdraw the campaign and to offer a public apology. Due to this petition and a lot of pressure from the Scouting movement, on February 7, MediaMarkt had to remove the Boy Scout from their campaign, including TV and radio ads, while also suspending the Parvónia campaign from television.
Turkish advertising
Turkish Union Association in Eskişehir, Turkey motivated suspension of an advertisement campaign by the group on grounds that MediaMarkt "insulted Turkishness" by depicting consumers that purchased overpriced merchandise with animal heads. A ban of the advertisements lasted for three months in 2009. There have been many accusations on their official Facebook fan page about their false product advertisements in Turkey.
Saubillig
A former German campaign played on the German expression "saubillig" which means extremely cheap, but literally "sow (female pig) cheap". Sau- is a common emphasising prefix in colloquial German. Inside the stores, the entrances were signposted as "Schweingang" = wordplay on the word Eingang (Entrance) and Schwein (pig), and the exit as "Sausgang" = wordplay on the word Ausgang (Exit) and the German word for sow (Sau) - the female pig.
Controversies
Article without VAT
MediaMarkt promised in 2005 a promotion to sell items "without VAT" (with a discount equal to VAT). The prices for these items had previously been increased in order to actually achieve the normal price. A competitor sued a branch in Mannheim.
Decoy offers
The MediaMarktSaturn Retail Group has made bait-and-switch in the past: articles were advertised extensively at extremely low prices but were sold out within a very short time. According to case law on the law against unfair competition (UWG) advertised special offers must be available for at least two days. Consumer advocates criticized that this was often not guaranteed at MediaMarkt and Saturn. The group denied that; there were only a few exceptions despite large stocks. It is generally difficult to provide concrete evidence of such cases, since consumer protection groups do not have access to the delivery dates of the companies.
Price Guarantee
In 2005, samples from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in the Munich area showed that MediaMarkt or Saturn stores were more expensive in 15 out of 21 cases than local competitors. In Berlin they were 11 out of 21 cases. The MediaMarktSaturn Retail Group countered the allegations with a "price guarantee" that promised buyers a refund of the price difference if they found the product at a lower price in another shop.
0% financing
In 2013, 0% financing from the Spanish bank Banco Santander was criticized. A credit loss insurance that costs 10% is taken out only on a note in the small print.
The exclusive sale of Intel PCs
According to research published by the Financial Times Germany in 2008, the MediaMarktSaturn Retail Group committed to Intel in 1999 to only sell PCs with Intel processors. The holding company received 85 million euros in purchase discounts and advertising grants from Intel in 2007 alone. The European antitrust authorities investigated the distortion of competition. Intel was fined 1.06 billion euros in May 2009 by the European Union's competition authority for these and other antitrust violations.
The retail chain was moved by Intel's discount system to have only insignificant or no computers with AMD processors on offer. According to the European Commission, Intel has made direct and indirect payments to MSH since 1997. The payments were subject to the condition that, if possible, only offer Intel systems.
Body searches
In 2014, in Krems an der Donau in Lower Austria, theft of the MediaMarkt, which is said to have been committed by employees, not only carried out bag checks, as is common in many companies but also body searches on all employees. The unions see this as a violation of human dignity. As a consequence, employees of other branches in Austria reported this procedure. This approach was blamed on the security service providers by the company.
Antitrust proceedings
On June 13, 2014, the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (BWB) announced a decision by the cartel court on April 23, 2014, against Media-Saturn Beteiligungs gmbH. A fine of 1,230,000 euros was imposed for vertical price matching of retail prices with the electronics industry between October 2009 and early 2013.
