Question

To what extent should marketers take these recommendations to heart? That is, should all marketing be controversial in some way? Why or why not? Identify a recent advertisement/promotion that you feel was controversial. Why do you feel that it was controversial? Do you think it reached it's intended goal? Why or why not? Please choose a different controversial advertisement/promotion than your classmates. Besides advertising, what other elements of IMC can marketers use to disrupt consumer’s attention and get them to pay attention to your marketing campaign? Why would you choose these?

Answer 1

All marketing need not be controversial in some or the other way.In the recent times Marketing environment has become very cluttered. Limited Advertisement space is filled with competing players. These players try every means to catch the attention of the consumers. Coupled with this the consumer mind is also fickle and span of attention is low.
This has created an ideal situation for marketers to pursue the strategy of creating controversies to catch the attention of the consumers. Lot of publicity and press coverage will also be received.This strategy pays the marketer in the short run i:e consumers attention is captured and some level of brand awareness is also reached. But in the long run the organisation suffers. Unless the product or service offering is satisfactory consumers won't buy it for a long time. Controversies may influence consumers in the short run, but it is the honesty and clarity of the advertisement and the quality of the product which wins.
A recent advertisement/promotion which was controversial is ad campaign by "Protein world" which was released in 2015 on bill boards. The ad pictured a bikini clad girl with the slogan " Are you beach body ready?". The idea was to promote perfect beach body by consuming supplements of the company.
The problem with the add is that it promotes body shaming. It tells that only one particular type of body is perfect and rest is not.
Despite the backlash the add received a lot of publicity and the company reportedly made millions of profit.

The others elements of IMC which can be used are
a) Sales promotion:- sales promotion is used to boost sales temporarily. But it also pays in the long run by registering the brand in the eyes of the consumer. This is a time proven strategy.
b) Digital marketing:- Today lot of consumers are in the digital world. digital marketing allows to design and deliver targeted and customised offerings to consumers at a very low cost also.