MARQUE! 6 OCTOBER 2011

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Shockvertising"Shockvertising" is a way

to jolt our senses, to cause an immediate reaction. Shock is sometimes used by marketers to grab the attention of consumers before applying the sales pitch. Shocking titles, pictures or actions never fail to get the attention of an audience. Think about the last time you heard something about any business that made you look up their website. In the overflow of information these days; how does your business stand out?

While it can be an effective tactic it is important to understand when to use it and when not to.

-Matthew Bywater

Marketing is fun. Its making money and everything else that matters while having a blast. Marketing is a way of life. And we in Marque, the marketing club of IIM Rohtak, know it fully well.

Canvas is the Newsletter of Marque, bringing to words and life the various concepts put in practice and evolving in

business and the world. Each edition of Canvas is based on a central theme from the marketing world of today.

The first edition is all about Shock Marketing. So, how many shock volts can you handle?

- Bharadwaj Battaram Marque

Shock MarketingHow many shock volts can you handle?

CANVAS

Sneak Peak

• Social Issues - Tanuj Goyal

• ROM Chocolate - Akshay Gupta

• Barnardo’s - Ankur Shukla

• United Colors of Benetton - Harsh Gupta

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All social awareness campaigns can broadly be divided into two categories –

a) social malpractice b)health problems caused due to negligent

behavior and/or bad habitsAny such campaign that aims at influencing a

prevalent social belief or a persistent behavior of an individual must perform three important functions: generate awareness about the consequences of these practices/behaviors, persuade people to avoid these behaviors and provide them support and guidance for the same.

“How to draw the attention of the target audiences so as to impart a long lasting impression which in turn will lead to increased participation and higher success?” is the question that arises. This is where shock advertising gains importance. Controversial by the very nature of it, shock advertising makes deliberate use of blunt slogans, provocative images and bold statements that challenge conventional understanding of social order and generally accepted norms thereby causing instant attention. It’s a much exploited marketing strategy in

the commercial spheres and has been in use for long now.

Shockvertising is widely used in lot of countries for the promotion of anti-smoking initiatives. WHO also suggests pictures of rotting lungs, miscarried foetuses and bleeding brains should be put on all tobacco packages because they are effective in preventing tobacco use.

Due to the anxiety these ads tend to create there remains a higher probability that the person watching them will discuss it with others. This is very important in the case of advertisements issued in the interest of general public where the success of a campaign solely depends upon the number of persons to which the message could be delivered.

SHOCK ADVERTISING – SOCIAL ISSUES

Stop domestic violence

- Tanuj GoyalIIM Rohtak

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ROM CHOCOLATECommon sense would dictate

that a marketing campaign challenging the nationalist pride of your target market is not the best way to promote your product. The marketing team at ROM Chocolate surely didn’t think so. And going by the immediate response to the campaign, they sure got that right.

ROM Chocolate is a Romanian chocolate bar, with the Romanian flag on its packaging since its launch in 1964. This strategy had helped them be the most popular chocolate in Romania till recently, when it had started losing its market share to American brands such as Snickers. Romania had been going through political and economic crises, and the morale within the country was low. The youth, especially, had started looking up to everything American, including their chocolates, and the Romanian association of ROM was becoming quite meaningless in this scenario.

Enter, McCann Erickson Romania. Instead of trying to fight the growing apathy of the youth, they decided to join them.

ROM decided an overnight change in their packaging. Instead of the Romanian flag, their chocolate now had the American flag on it. It was now advertised with a number of taglines such as “The Taste of Coolness”, “Let’s Build America Here”, “Patriotism Won’t Feed You”, and “The American Dream now in the Romanian Chocolate”. The purpose of this shock tactic was to instill a sense

of national ego and pride in the Romanians.

The marketing campaign became a point of discussion across the country, and the Romanians felt like they had lost a national symbol. A wave of patriotism swept through the country, and citizens stood united to defend the Romanian culture and their own flag. Flash mobs, Facebook groups, Youtube videos and debates on prime time television were organized to protest the change. Meanwhile, a dedicated McCann team responded to comments posted online, and did their part to feed the debates.

ROM let this public outcry continue for a week, before informing the public that the American ROM was actually a hoax, and returning to the market with the original ROM packaging. Simultaneously, they also launched a ROM Anthem in Romanian to tap into the newly rekindled patriotic passion. The campaign was a resounding success – within the first two weeks, the campaign reached 67% of Romanians. It managed to generate 300,000 Euros worth of publicity without having to pay a cent for it, and the number of fans of the ROM Facebook page increased by 300%. ROM went on the become Romania’s most popular chocolate bar with a 79% increase in sales, and outperformed the market by 20% in the most relevant channels.

Some would argue that ROM went a step too far by testing the ego of a nation with their campaign. Indeed it was a huge risk, and could have heavily backfired. However, ROM went ahead with it, and managed to come out unscathed. They had

decided right from the start that they would run the American ROM for just a week, regardless of the response, and then switch back to the original packaging. Also, it might be safe to assume that McCann would have done the analysis of the market before launching a campaign of this sort, which might have resulted in the brand name getting destroyed. Such a campaign obviously might not have worked in most other countries, where the changing of the national flag to the American flag might have been seen as a political agenda. So, it is essential that shock marketing also be carried out in an ethical, non-offensive and professional manner.

Shock marketing is utilized by a number of brands today, and ROM, along with McCann Erickson, has certainly taken advantage of the Romanian pride to reinvent their brand, and customer loyalty to it. At the same time, they also managed to achieve a more substantial goal, which no sales figures could match up to. They managed to unite the people of Romania towards a common goal, something that is hardly heard of in today’s world. So, it is safe to say that this marketing strategy by ROM was one of shock and awe, while containing a hidden social agenda as well.

The icing on the cake for ROM and McCann Erickson Romania -.their campaign won two Grand Prix awards at the 2011 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Also, the American ROM was sold out, as a Collector’s Edition item.

- Akshay GuptaIIM Rohtak

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GIVING CHILDREN BACK THEIR FUTURE (1999 - 2000)

This campaign included seven press advertisements which depicted children in adult situations, such as a baby injecting heroin, a toddler clutching a bottle of whisky and another preparing to commit suicide. The advertisements aimed to show what potentially disastrous adulthoods await many of the disadvantaged and vulnerable young people Barnardo's works with. According to the copy, John is a 23 year old drug addict; however, in the image a baby is shown, complete contrast to portray the gravity of the situation.

In all the advertisements, there is a sharp contrast between the child and the background. The child is white in color and the background is dark and violent. The objects like injections and bottle of whisky are used to shock people and make them realize that these children need their immediate help.

BARNARDO’S, UK

BARNARDOS’ SHOCK ADVERTISING“A good basic selling idea, involvement and relevancy, of course, are as important as ever, but in the advertising days of today, unless you make yourself noticed and believed, you ain't got nothing”. Every day we come across hundreds of advertisements which grab our attention. They have in them that one unexpected factor, that one difference, that one little thing that sometimes takes us by surprise and is shocking to our senses.

Barnardo's is a British charity founded by Thomas John Barnardo in 1866, to care for vulnerable children and young people. Barnardo's used to be a children’s charity famous for its orphanages, which in 1966 they began to close. Over the next 30

years Barnardo's was relatively quiet about its new areas of work, which resulted in low public awareness of Barnardo's and what we did. This encouraged Barnardo's to re-think its approach and so they tasked the advertising agency Bartle, Bogle & Hegarty (BBH) in 1998, with raising awareness and repositioning Barnardo's as modern, relevant and deserving by bringing the public up-to-date with the vital work they do.

Almost 80 per cent of the public in UK think it is justifiable for charities to use shock tactics in their advertising, according to a survey by pollsters YouGov. Eighty-two per cent said shock tactics were acceptable if they raised awareness of domestic violence and 78 per cent said the same was true of child poverty.

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CHILD POVERTY CAMPAIGN (2003)

The campaign is largely regarded as the charity's most controversial print advertisement which was banned by The Advertising Standards Authority. This image of a newborn baby attracted a storm of controversy, after another leading children's charity claimed it was 'insulting to the very people they purport to help'. However, Barnardo's stuck by its campaign to raise awareness of how children born into poverty will grow up to be living in squalor, addicted to alcohol or drugs and be involved in crime.

Image of the cockroach is synonymous with the concept of squalor in which the baby will develop. The idea of cockroach was to shock people and to make them think about what they can do to help children like the one used in this advert. In the other poster, they incorporated a well known saying into the campaign, if you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth it means that you're spoilt and given everything you want whereas the saying is turned on its head 'There are no silver spoons for children born into poverty'. The other items used in the campaigns were newspaper adverts, broadsheet press and methylated spirit bottle. The strengths of the campaigns are the images used because it rea$y demonstrates the seriousness of the topic and communicates the message we$.

NEW LIFE CAMPAIGN (2005)

The concept behind the ‘new life’ campaign is that Barnardo’s gives children a better start in life, and therefore the chance of a better future. Again in this campaign, they have used visually stimulating images. Quoting, Andrew Nebel, the charity's director of fundraising, marketing and communications, “I can honestly say we were not trying to shock for theatrical purposes. We were

seeking to make them unmissable.” The parodying the concept of birth can be offending for some. The advert of a girl growing up being abused is both visually shocking and stimulating. The images of a girl abused and looking at you with hope, stir emotions in you and it forces your senses to take some steps. The issue of prostitution and abuse of teenage girls is an issue which has a very negative connotation and the negative emotions have been visually captured and presented to shock the viewers. The images make you feel responsible for their plight if you don’t take any steps to save them. The step is to donate money to Barnardo’s charity group

- Ankur ShuklaIIM Rohtak

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Shock Marketing is a type of marketing that “deliberately, rather than inadvertently, startles and offends its audience by violating norms for social values and personal ideals.”

This form of advertising is often controversial, disturbing, explicit and may bring out provocative political message; may not only offend but can frighten as well; uses scare tactics and elements of fear to sell a product or deliver a public service message, making a “high impact.” It is often considered to have been pioneered by Benetton, the Italian clothing retailers which created the line United Colors of Benetton, and its advertisements in the late 1980s.

Today, Benetton Group is present in 120 countries around the world. Its retail network of 5,000 contemporary stores around the world, offers high quality customer services and generates a total turnover of over 1.9 billion euro. The group provides employment to 7,987 people around the world.

Benetton’s intuitional campaigns carry a big idea, a unique concept of showing shocking images to the world. The idea behind using shocking images was an effort by Benetton to breakthrough the complacency that exists in our society. Removing these images from their familiar contexts and putting them in a new context, makes them more likely noticed, as the viewer

becomes involved in a process of answering the questions: What does this image mean? Why does this image appears with the Benetton logo? How do I feel about the subject of the image? What can I do? When images have shock value, they attract many people’s attention. People are bound to think about the image in the ad and thus know some of the world’s problems in the process.

Benetton’s shocking ads are designed to raise public awareness of social issues, issues that are global and universal. Using shocking images people are forced to think about the topic.

The ads only have an image that grabs audience attention in just a glance and a logo. The company carries out a single campaign that runs all over the world. These ads do not tell anyone to buy company’s products and don’t even imply it. Because Benetton's clothes are sold around the world, the expenses incurred to tailor campaigns to specific national markets would have been enormous. To reduce these high costs, UCB brings the world's markets together by using a single advertisement that would appeal to many cultures, races, religions, and lifestyles. The attempt is only to promote discussion about issues which people might ignore if presented to them through some other channel. Hence, it is an advertising that speaks across all cultural boundaries and raises social awareness by presenting powerful human and universal themes.

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT AD ABOUT?

UNITED COLORS OF BENETTONBecause the guidelines for acceptable advertisements vary throughout the world, Benetton's campaigns were praised in some countries and damned in others. For example, a photograph of a priest and a nun kissing did not produce the extreme outcry in the United States as it did in Vatican City.

-Harsh GuptaIIM Rohtak

MARQUE! 6 OCTOBER 2011

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