SHOCKVERTISING – Employing a shocking message/image to increase notoriety of a brand

A concatenation of the words shock and advertising as a type of marketing communication. The idea behind this concept is to increase the attention and retention (memory) and to create a reaction by the target audience. In this sense we define shocking as anything (normally graphic in this case) that causes an emotional impact. The question is how do we define what is shockvertising and what is not. Shockvertising should be seen as a marketing message lacking any objective relation to the product or company communicating the message in question. The only objective is to stand out from the masses of marketing messages that we are exposed to daily.

There are four categories of shockvertising:

1. Beauty and sex: This is the concept of the so called porno chic born in France. The company uses graphically explicit images of typically the female form in suggestive positions to catch the attention of the target audience. This is the most common form of shockvertising adopted by most firms. Often this has no or little relation to the products being advertised. A recent example is that of Suit Supply a dutch brand specializing in male formal clothing. The most recent and controversial billboards that were visible in Amsterdam portrays a male dressed in a suit and a lady in a sexual position. There is no real link between suits and the message. 

2. Humor and laughter: Often black humor is used to help the brand stand out from the rest. When the message is particularly funny (often television spots) this will be posted to sites such as YouTube and can be forwarded to friends. This is also known as creating a buzz, hence buzz marketing.

3. Trouble: A message to provoke a negative stimulus - anger or sadness (violence, drugs, death, etc). The single and probably most well known examples are those of the clothing company Benetton and its advertising using a terminally ill AIDS patient in 1992. The message portrayed is not related to the company's products which is selling clothing (commercial aim). The image used however gives the public a feeling of sadness/pity for the ill patient (humanitarian). Another example still from Benetton is the image “Sentenced to Death”. Again the same as above, a sentiment of sorrow for the man sentenced to death...by what is the underlying relation to Benetton. Morally correct? The idea is to shock and get notoriety through the controversy provoked by the advert.

4. Confusion: The target audience asks itself what the relation to the brand or product is. As is the case, often there is no relation between the message (image) and the product being promoted. What counts is that the message is retained from the thousands of marketing campaigns we are exposed to on a daily basis.

Personally I feel that this is an extremely effective method of getting a brand known and with the correct dosage can be very powerful, it should not be overly exploited, and should not be seen as the only way to get attention.

Humor could be used to a greater extent as with information technology available to most households in the western world, a clear video can be viewed via buzz than any commercial in newspapers or bill boards at a far lower rate.