Why and how to use a shock image in an advertising campaign?

Résumé du document

In the present society, advertising has become inevitable. It's quite impossible to stay more than 2 minutes without seeing or hearing an ad somewhere. Even at home, we're not anymore protected with the ads in our mail box, adds on the radio, the spams on the Internet and Televisions. Advertisements have become a part of life. In this study about the shock advertising, I will focus on the billboards that we see everyday in French cities, bus stops and in the metropolitan. Someone who lives in a big city like London, New York or Paris is surrounded by more than a thousand advertising messages every day. Advertisements have made a huge impact on the French population where we can observe different perceptions like revolt, indignation, disgust, anger, envy etc. For the last few years, we have seen that some associations protesting against advertisement. In the first part of this document, I will define shock advertising, which has become a debatable topic. It is also important to know that there are some regulations and some controls specifics for the ads appearing in France. Advertisers can't do everything they want. In the second part, I will focus on the different points of view on this subject namely:
- The advertisers
- The consumers
Finally, I will focus the economic aspects of advertising and analyze the financial impact of advertisements on a Company.

Extraits

[...] But with time, they also find an advantage to find the limits. In fact, even if the shock advertising is made to sell more, it can also have an opposite effect if it becomes too shocking. Consumers will choose to boycott the brand and it's not good for this last one. In that way advertisers are still playing with the limit to be the most seen but without falling into the bad size. Nevertheless, advertisers have often a good argumentation. [...]

[...] The country in which the advertisement will be diffused is a really important point to take into account, to better understand the culture and so the eventual reactions. The company size is also important, as its notoriety. In fact, the company has to know if it's more important to promote the specific product concerned by the advertisement or if it's more important to promote the general company to increase its notoriety. To finish, the company budget will be a determining aspect in the advertising campaign. In fact, a shock advertisement will often need a long term communication and so an adapted budget. [...]

[...] Why the shock advertising? As we have already said, there is today so much advertisement that we can't see and retain everything. It's an important risk for advertisers, and even the most important one: not to be noticed. It's more and more difficult to keep the consumers' attention. Moreover, products are now becoming more and more similar and so the advertisement has an important role to play in the consumer choice. In that way, advertisers have to be creative. It's why they try to shock consumers to make them react, in the way to make them remind the brand or product name for a long time. [...]

[...] Everybody will not be shocked by the same thing because we are not all sensitive on the same point. To give a general definition, we can say that to be considered as shocking all ads without any relation between the product or the company and the image showed on the billboard, and which can provoke some violent reactions, everything in the unique aim to become more known”2. To sum up, we can note that there are 3 main points to take into account to analyze an ad as shocking or not: The nature of the advertiser and the product to be promoted The support The target e. [...]

[...] What is shocking? First of all, it's important to say that today advertisement is more esthetic and it's a reason why the nudity can be tolerated: it's an image of beauty and not just anymore the image of the nudity which is shown. Secondly, things are now more suggested than shown. But it's this suggestion, or the interpretation and the image each one can have about what he sees that will be shocking. The main shocking subjects are the idea of the woman object, the submission, the violence, the social differences . [...]