I don't think any individual colour can be ugly. Ugliness depends on context, on combinations with other colours. For example, yesterday I was wearing two different shades of purple. That was ugly. Any one of them would look great with black, but combine the two and it's ugly.
If they want to make ugliness mandatory for things they want to discourage, they should prescribe ugly colour combinations, not single colours. Although I doubt even that will work. Things that are considered ugly in one decade can often become popular in the next, and vice versa.
Yes. Very naïve campaign. Great branding artefact though, quite a unique color if anything. It will probably become as consolidated in the collective unconscious as the Marlboro red-white geometry.
If they want to make ugliness mandatory for things they want to discourage, they should prescribe ugly colour combinations, not single colours. Although I doubt even that will work. Things that are considered ugly in one decade can often become popular in the next, and vice versa.