What factors make controversial advertising offensive ?

WHAT FACTORS MAKE CONTROVERSIAL ADVERTISING OFFENSIVE?:

A PRELIMINARY STUDY

David S. Waller

School of Marketing

University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT

While some advertisers have undertaken controversial advertising campaigns that have been

very successful, some have been damaging to the company. This is particularly important for

companies that have a controversial product, like condoms, feminine hygiene products and

underwear. This paper presents some preliminary results of a survey of 150 people to determine

whether they perceive particular sex/gender-related products as offensive, what are the reasons

to find advertisements offensive and discover correlations to ascertain why certain products are

perceived as offensive. The results, while preliminary, indicate some important issues for

advertisers.

INTRODUCTION

As the amount of advertising increases, it would appear that there has been an increase in the

amount of controversial advertising shown in various media. Some of reasons for this include

that society has become more complex, increased awareness of the harmful effects of some

products and as agencies try to become more creative to "cut through the clutter" to gain

attention and brand awareness (Waller 1999). For advertisers the problem can be that a

controversial advertising campaign can be very successful or very damaging, depending on what

ultimately happens in the marketplace. For example, the clothing company Benetton has long

been criticized for its advertising which uses controversial images to send a message of "social

concern" (Evans and Sumandeep 1993), until the death-row campaign was felt o have gone too

far (Curtis 2002). Similar problems occurred to Calvin Klein who had been criticized for running

campaigns with explicit sexual images, but had to publicly apologize after the outrage caused by

a campaign that was alleged to use images of child pornography (Anon 1995; Irvine 2000). The

result of a controversial advertising campaign can, therefore, be offence that can lead to a number

of actions like negative publicity, attracting complaints to advertising regulatory bodies, falling

sales, and product boycotts Advertisers wanting to undertake a controversial campaign must,

therefore, then tread the fine line between successfully communicating to the marketplace and

offending some people.

The issue for some advertisers and their agencies is to determine who may be offended by their

controversial campaign and what are the reasons for offence, particularly when the product itself

may be controversial, eg condoms and feminine hygiene products. To some extent the

advertisers, particularly those with controversial products, have a social responsibility not to

offend people by their advertising images, yet in a free market they should be able to

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communicate a message to their customers. This paper presents some preliminary finding on a

study of controversial advertising and what are the underlying reasons for offence towards the

advertising of particular products. The objective is to determine types of people who are

offended and the areas of offence to assist advertisers in making better managerial decisions

when is comes to deciding on a controversial advertising strategy.

ADVERTISING OF CONTROVERSIAL PRODUCTS

Some advertisers, by the nature of the product, may be perceived as controversial and any

promotion of their product may generate negative responses, for example cigarettes, alcohol,

condoms or feminine hygiene products (Schuster and Powell 1987; Wilson and West 1995).

Previous studies in this area have mainly looked at these products in terms of the products being

"unmentionables" (Wilson and West 1981; Alter 1982; Katsanis 1994; Wilson and West 1995;

Spain 1997), "decent products" (Shao 1993) "socially sensitive products" (Shao and Hill 1994a;

Shao and Hill 1994b; Fahy, Smart, Pride and Ferrell 1995), and "controversial products"

(Rehman and Brooks 1987). Wilson and West (1981) defined "unmentionables" as: "... products,

services, or concepts that for reasons of delicacy, decency, morality, or even fear tend to elicit

reactions of distaste, disgust, offence, or outrage when mentioned or when openly presented"

(p92). This definition has since been supported by Triff, Benningfield and Murphy (1987),

Fahy, Smart, Pride and Ferrell (1995) and Waller (1999). Katsanis (1994) also added that

“unmentionables” were “offensive, embarrassing, harmful, socially unacceptable or

controversial

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