Taking a Risk : An Examination into the Use of Provocation and Its Effects in the Advertising Message

Introduction

Over the years, Advertising has become the single largest source of visual imagery in our social society and consumers are constantly bombarded with a multitude of forms of advertising messages each day. Consumers are inevitably becoming less sensitive to advertising messages due to an overabundance in their minds, often resulting in these messages going unnoticed. The creative choice adopted by Advertisers to attract consumer’s attention is the use of provocative advertising. The provocative approach is a risk that one has to take in order to differentiate oneself from the fierce competition in today’s advertising clutter, by crossing physical borders and transcending ideological boundaries (Tinic, 1997). The objective of this research is to examine the effectiveness of such an advertising strategy by looking at terms such as ‘emotions’ and ‘attitudes’ and how it is an effective use of it can be geared towards advertisements and brands involved.

Importance of research

The word ‘provocation’ in the context of advertising is defined by Vezina and Paul, as “a deliberate appeal, within the content of an advertisement, to stimuli that are expected to shock at least a portion of the audience, both because they are associated with values, norms or taboos that are habitually not challenged or transgressed in advertising, and because of their distinctiveness and ambiguity”. (Vezina and Paul, 1957) Provocation-based execution strategies encompass sensitive issues that may evoke Fear (Ray and Wilkie, 1970; LaTour and Zahra, 1988), Humor (Sternthal and Craig, 1973; Gelb and Zinkhan, 1986), Warmth (Aaker et al., 1986), Irritation (Greyser, 1973; Aakerand Bruzzone, 1985), and Sexual arousal (Bello et al., 1983; Severn et al., 1990).

These themes would then be presented into the advertising content that would usually spark controversy amongst consumers, in hopes of increasing both brand awareness and its revenues. Most of the time, advertisers that choose to use the provocative approach have one goal in mind, and that is to escape from the jungle of images and slogans that consumers are exposed to on a daily basis. In order to attract attention and arouse curiosity, provocative Advertising has to have a degree of boldness to overcome both psychological and cultural barriers.

Purpose

This paper has three primary objectives and the first objective is to provide a brief overview of how the provocative appeal materialized itself into advertising, and which particular brands were the pioneer of this risk-taking strategy. This is also to demonstrate that the provocation strategy is not a fad or an angle that is used by a single brand.

The second objective is to identify how successful brands that used provocation in the earlier days with traditional mediums manage to transition and represent themselves in our current generation with the emergence of digital mediums such as social networks in order for their brand to remain successful and relevant to consumers. This case study used for this research will be the brand, Calvin Klein.

The third objective is to bring awareness of different kinds of provocation, not just the visual based provocation which assumingly only depicts suggestive visuals such as nudity. There is an importance to distinguish provocative appeal from sexual appeals. Provocative appeals encompass much more than sexual appeals (Vezina and Paul, 1997). Many a times, political, racial and health issues are raised in the provocative approach to aggravate the minds and emotions of consumers as well.

Finally, the directions for future research will be highlighted since research on this topic remains in its early stages. Ultimately, the aim of this paper is to examine the overall effectiveness of various kinds of provocative ads, and look into the consumer’s reactions and whether they take into consideration the image the brand is representing when purchasing their products or in other cases, supporting a cause.

Summary of readings

i) The birth of the provocative approach

According to Vezina and Paul, Benetton, the Italian clothing firm, is most often credited as the originator of provocative appeals in the advertising message. In the late 80s, the company rode to global fame with its controversial line “All the colors of the world”, which focused on young people of different races wearing the company’s clothing. (Vezina and Paul, 1997) By being distinctively bold and different, the campaign had everyone talking in a positive light, as it was the first time such a multicultural group appeared together in Italian advertising. This campaign eventually evolved into the brand “United Colors of Benetton”, that ended up forming the basis of emphasized ethnical diversity.

The company continued to churn out even more highly provocative photographs in the 90s, boldly digging deeper into sensitive subjects that may be deliberately offensive to some people. One campaign in 1991 involved an angelic looking white child embracing a black child, whose hair is shaped into devils horns, depicting racial issues. (Refer to appendix A Fig 1.1) In the same ironic fashion, another campaign depicting religion was launched the same year. It showed a priest dressed in black kissing a nun dressed in white, with the known fact being that priests and nuns are vowed to celibacy, the action of kissing between one another should not be taking place. (Refer to appendix A Fig 1.2) This was the reason why the United Colors of Benetton brand became known as the pioneer of the use of the religion-based provocative strategy.

French Connection United Kingdom (FCUK) became another clothing company that adopted the provocative appeal method in their advertising strategies not long after Benetton did. Its name, which was “accidentally misspelt”, was enough to cause an enormous controversial success for several years. They capitalized on the controversy it caused by producing simple t-shirts with one-liner messages that says “fcuk fashion”, “hot as fcuk”, “too busy to fcuk’, and “fcuk safely” just to name a few. Subsequently, many other clothing and fashion brands that include Esprit and Diesel started adopting the provocative strategy, and ad campaigns became more and more shocking with the use of taboo subjects. The use of taboos is an important criterion of provocation as it generates vivid reactions. The use of taboos in advertising is often of religious or of social nature. (Jones, Stanaland and Gelb, 1998) and ultimately, a provocative advertisement aims at attracting people in order for them to remember the message conveyed and especially to recognize the brand