Eccentric Flower:201001/Shock Value
From Eccentric Flower
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Shock Value
It became clear at the end of 2007 that all the rules of advertising were going to change. One of the changes I did not predict in that essay was the increasing trend toward shock tactics in advertising. I speculated upon pull vs. push trends and the increase in targeted content, as well as the consumer demands for ad-skipping whenever possible, but I didn't consider this side effect. However, the reasoning is clear: when viewers skip ads and ignore any content that isn'tPAY ATTENTION
Oops, sorry, thought you were dozing off there.
You see my point: When consumers ignore ads, the advertisers can either find new ways to get ads to consumers, or they can try to up the volume, metaphorically, on the ads to make them harder to ignore. The first option is hard and the second is lazy. I'd like to say that in 2007 I was hoping the advertising industry would grow a pair and try working on the first option; I'd like to say I'm disappointed with them for taking the lazy road - but the fact is, in 2007 I wasn't sure advertising as we knew it would survive, and I'm still not, and I'm not sure exactly what we'll do when it collapses. It's all very good and well to say, "Find new ways to advertise." Can you think of any? Take as much time as you need. I'll wait.
Under the circumstances, I can't fault advertisers for upping the nasty-surprise levels of their ads. It's no longer the lazy solution; it's the desperate, last-ditch one. (And young, "edgy" ad writers usually work more cheaply than their established peers.)
I do, however, notice and dislike the fact that most of the shock-value ads in this list from AdFreak are PSAs. This makes a rough kind of sense. I bet there were plenty more shock-value ads this year that worked well, and therefore did not make this "freakiest ads" list, because they were for actual products. The kind of approach that might work to sell a product tends to become jarring and, yes, freaky when used in a PSA.
A PSA that tries to shock you into changing your behavior is one I automatically reject. It's like one of those horror-show exhibits your church did when you were a kid to try to keep you on the path of righteousness. I am not an intemperate drinker, and yet a "scare 'em sober" ad makes me want to go out and find myself a large slug of Scotch, and then throw the bottle at the head of whoever's bad idea that was. What I mean is, beware of backlash. As far as I'm concerned, PSAs cannot afford to be preachy unless tempered well with wit or grace, and most of this crop show precious little of either.
It's even worse when the idea is a hugely misguided one. I gather that Ancilla Tilia (one of my favorite fetish models working today, by the by) is a vegetarian and thus was willing to sign on to the horribly bad idea in #13, but my god, whoever decided to try to link a violent act committed against a fish and a violent act committed against a woman really needs his (and I bet it was a his) head examined. And good lord, people, it's a fish. Bang its head on the table once before you gut it if you're concerned; that'll kill it. I wonder how these people feel about live boiling of lobsters (which have the nervous system of cockroaches)?
(I'm a nice guy, but: You cannot exist in this universe without directly or indirectly killing something else at some point - even Jainists admit this - and my compassion diminishes rapidly as we move down the ladder to creatures whose nervous system is less sophisticated than, say, a cow's or a cat's. I am not saying that critters aren't as entitled to a humane death as everyone else; I'm just saying, when you get down to the level of a chicken or a fish, let alone a lobster, the idea of "humane death" becomes sharply constricted by natural limits. When slaughtering a steer, all you can do on a practical level for "humane death" is make it quick, as painless as possible, and try not to scare the animal too much first. But death is, lets face it, always going to be death and it's always going to be a little nasty. Some people interpret that as, "well, then, we shouldn't kill anything." I read it as, "be aware of what died to feed you, be reverent, be graceful, and move on." And thus endeth that sermonette.)
Bottom line on this ad: If you're going to show me a woman being gutted, you'd better have a damned good reason for doing so - a hell of a lot better reason than the death of a fish.
Probably my least favorite of the misguided PSAs, though, is the Pfizer ad (#1) whose purpose is to scare you out of buying generic drugs through the mail so that you will run back to their arms and continue paying their ridiculously inflated prices. I could say more about that but I've digressed enough already.
In fact, I've digressed enough (I think that fish ad really did annoy me) that I will finish up, abruptly, with only two brief observations: The McDonald's ad at #26 is actually funny (well, I think it's funny), and I still don't know why the young woman in the Apoliva ad (#21) scares people.
Joy:
Oh I really shouldn't have watched the PSAs with the dead kids. Really, I shouldn't. Gah!
I found the Apoliva woman kind of odd looking for a woman's beauty campaign. Her brow ridge and very deep set eyes are quite masculine and that might be what people were squicked by.
-- 20:28, 11 January 2010 (GMT)
I think the Pfizer ad is pointed at something a little different that what you and Iain are suggesting. It's not talking about generics, per se. Manufacturers of legal generics in this country (and I'd guess the UK as well) are held to the same manufacturing standards (aka GMP) as are Pfizer and the other large pharmaceutical companies that do their own R&D. Any generic that you'd get in a pharmacy here would be subject to the exactly the same analytical scrutiny as the brand-name drug. This ad is taking aim at overseas mail-order drugs. The argument (in the US, anyway) is that few other countries adhere to the same standards of GMP as domestic pharmaceutical manufacture.
I think the woman in #21 is pretty creepy. But then, I'm delicate.
-- 20:42, 11 January 2010 (GMT)
Iain:
I think the Pfizer ad is pointed at something a little different that what you and Iain are suggesting. It's not talking about generics, per se.
Oh, I got what they were talking about. That type of mail-order drug isn't legal here at all, to the extent that such a ban is enforceable. Doesn't mean that Pfizer couldn't, with some slight tinkering to the ad copy, make it work for an "OMG! People want to buy lower cost drugs from Canada which has the same standards as we do only we like to pretend it doesn't! Rat droppings and urine from Canada, people! FROM CANADA! Buy Amuricn drugs or you'll DIE!" type ad.
-- 21:30, 11 January 2010 (GMT)
Am I the only one who saw ad #28 and thought that it was someone's fetish?
-- 22:01, 11 January 2010 (GMT)
I can see why people would be scared of the Apoliva ad. As Joy pointed out, the woman has an extremely androgynous look, she's not pretty in any conventional sense. (I'm not saying people have reason to be unsettled by that, but it's one reason why some folks would find the ad creepy.) She's also lit in a spooky way, with her washed-out skin and dark eye sockets giving her a very skull-like quality. Then she's singing this creepy little horror movie song in a little girl voice that doesn't seem to fit her face. And there's something about the way her hair blows in her face that made me think we were in for a CGI transformation of some kind, like her hair would obscure her and then she was going to get old or turn into a monster or whatever. I don't know if that was intentional or if anybody else got that feeling, but that's how it read to me. We've all seen a lot of pretty girl ads, and this one overturns the conventions in a way that sort of makes it play like an ad for a horror movie.
-- 11:38, 12 January 2010 (GMT)
Totally off-topic, but you need an "ask Columbina to write about this" drop-box somewhere on this site, now that you've told us you don't read email.
Here's my current one: "The Spectacle of Competition," in which sports (amateur vs. professional vs. performance) and sex are approached along angles familiar to Eccentric Flower readers, but too timidly and neatly. I think. I brace myself for an education.
-- 22:40, 13 January 2010 (GMT)
I never said I didn't read email. I said I didn't read email FAST. Actually, I'm doing better now that I've changed email computers. I check about once every two days now.
I already ranted about sports elsewhere today and maybe I'll convert that into an entry when I'm not writing code nonstop for my entire waking daytime.
-- 23:53, 13 January 2010 (GMT)
This may or may not be on topic, but were you aware of that your frustration had a name? Very cool.
-- 16:03, 14 January 2010 (GMT)
Iain:
I do take issue with a couple of their ads. It does seem to me that maybe the freakiness of the ad should be judged by its target audience. (With the possible exception of the non-Quebecois Canadian ads.) For example, a really stunning number of Japanese ads couldn't play here, just because the reaction wouldn't be "Wow, I have to try that!" but "Are those people INSANE?"
The McDonald's ad is kind of funny -- though I don't think you could make it play in a 30-second spot very well. Not quite sure that the US branch would have the sense of humor to allow its ad people to imply that children who want to eat its products have been possessed by the devil, though. And I definitely don't get why anyone would have been scared by the Apoliva ad; baffled, maybe -- depending on what she's singing -- but scared? The New Mexico DOT ad is, I suppose, a tolerably decent way of doing such things, though I don't think it's different enough to get people to pay attention. And the pancreatic cancer ad is lunatic; that disease is usually discovered by accident, and I'm not sure there are even any real screening tests for it, so what on earth do they expect people to do? "I have a stomach ache ... clearly, it's pancreatic cancer!"
By the by, some research back in the day found that the "Just say no! to drugs!" ad campaign -- remember the girl with the skillet? -- was magnificently counterproductive. The campaign apparently increased drug use by making kids and teens aware that there were, in fact, drugs they should be saying no to at an earlier age than they might otherwise have noticed. (And all that said, the UK DOT anti-drug ad is absolutely hysterical, in both senses of the word. Apparently, drugs will make your eyes visible from miles away! Who knew?)
I am moderately surprised that Pfizer hasn't aired that #1 ad in the US. Given the current issues, you'd think it would be everywhere.
-- 18:11, 11 January 2010 (GMT)