jeudi 10 novembre 2011

"Shock Marketing" , where is the limit ?

The goal of Shock Marketing is to go against moral principles of someone. To make him have a trauma, an emotional shock.

Nowadays, many ads are trying to shock. People are confronted to so many ads that so marketers think that creating an emotional shock is a very efficient way to deliver their message. But do these shocks have an impact on consumers behavior?

If it doesn't, at least, they catch attention. Moreover, with the new social communities, they create the buzz. But in the good way ? Even if they believe that they are delivering their message, don't they take the risk to cross the line and to send back the trauma on the brand image ? Should there be a limit, or are all the ways good to catch the attention ?


For this, we have many examples. From Lady Gaga to "Reporters sans frontières", they all try to shock to make people react or force them to get a message.

During the last ten years, sexual contents in ads have become more and more common. Now, they use it even for promoting products which have no relation with it. That's the case of "vivastreet" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwLli9uMHoE&feature=player_embedded) or "perrier" ("La main la plus sexy du monde")

So now, if sexuality is less and less shocking in people mind, they try to enter on new fields, that's the case of "Loué" with its ad for its "Free chicken":


But also RSF which made some ads attacking directly symbols of the french republic:



And some other brands, understanding that some targets want gore and trash (mainly young people), don't hesitate to shock in order to reach them:


Other commercials will go even farther. That's the case of many "prevention" ads, that try to "shock" in order to make people realize. But many people complained, saying that these ads are confusing strong symbols that have no link together (Aids and Hitler, in a spot against aids).
Other are going very far and try to create a real trauma. That's the case of the spot for the road safety, with blood, cries, dead bodies, they really made it distressing so that people can realize and react. Shock to save.



If brands could maybe not permit themselves to create such trauma, mainly because it wouldn't bring a good image of them, this kind of marketing is used by some people to become famous, and stay famous. That's the case of people living of their image and fame. These stars, mostly singers, will try to catch the attention by any mean, which can be very controversial sometimes.

That's the case of course of Lady Gaga, who created buzz any time she did something (wearing a dress made of meat, shocking video clips) but also of many others. And even if many people complained, it did work. The buzz was done. That's also the case of M.I.A., who asked to Romain Gavras (well known for his very controversial video clips that always create the buzz, such as "Stress" for Justince) to make a clip for her song "Born free".

They said they wanted it to be shocking so that people would realize the need of equality between people. But, if the video does shock, we can wonder if the message is spread.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeMvUlxXyz8&ob=av2e&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fresults%3Fsearch_query%3Dborn%2Bfree%2Bm.i.a%26aq%3Df&has_verified=1

More than controversial, this brings the question of what can be tolerated in order to catch attention.

The amount of advertisements is growing more and more, and with internet, it is spreading faster and faster. If ten years ago we could only see french ads in France, now any commercial can have a worldwide success. Having that in mind, we can wonder if some ads won't try to become more and more shocking in order to be different from others.

To my mind, this way of attracting attention is the laziest way. Shocking instead of trying to be different with its originality and creativity just like the wonderful job of Tippex:




 But good or bad, useful or useless, people might complain or not, these producers and marketers of "shocking ads" achieved their goal: people talk about it and that creates the buzz.















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