Today’s “edgy” breed of creative marketers might have titled this blog: “You Are an Idiot if Your Marketing Doesn’t Offend” but is this kind of immature ribbing really what sells? Shock jocks, like Groupon and now Kraft, are obviously taking lessons from Howard Stern groupies.
Can we now expect previously dignified brands to crack the creative ceiling with circus show fire-breathers and angry drunken dwarf rants? Well, maybe. Watch Kraft’s new commercial where a woman hosting a party, featuring Athenos hummus, is flabbergasted when her very traditional Greek grandmother tastelessly declares her a prostitute.
Does that make you want to buy more hummus? Will you even recall the Athenos brand more clearly now that Kraft has caught your attention with such a wild stunt?
Here are a few more examples of “stupid shock advertising” methods. It’s obvious there will never be a short supply of companies who are starved for attention, whether it be positive or negative…but what does that do for the brand long term? Why risk the fall out, when the significant resources required to produce these high tech bait and switch ads could be invested in more meaningful efforts.
For those just waiting on the edge of your seats for a paragraph on how these ad techniques simply don’t work and how Kraft should go back to producing wholesome Miracle Whip ads, consider this Wall Street Journal article which highlights a 10% sales increase from Kraft’s punchy efforts. With a clear ROI in place to encourage their nervy mischief, Kraft doesn’t plan to stop scraping away at the decades of moldy film that has accumulated around its old-style branding efforts for the past couple of decades: “Next month, Kraft will begin national ads for a contest in which divorcing couples can win money to pay for their split if, at least in part, it resulted from their differences over Miracle Whip.”
What do you think: Should online marketers clean it up or keep pushing their kitschy craft?
