Abstract
Abstract In today’s economies the role of marketing cannot be underestimated, just the sole amount of media communications is astonishing not taking in consideration the different marketing and PR strategies involved. The most well-known tools include advertising, public relations, sales promotions, direct marketing and personal selling. There is an increasing number of advertisements that reach our attention by the presence of vulgarity, nudity or moral offenses. The aim of the article is to extensively review the literature of shock advertising namely shockvertising and to pinpoint its evolution in case of Benetton fashion brand. Shockvertising focuses on the idea of selling products through evoking terrifying and repulsive emotions. This type of advertising is used to sensitize people to religion, racism, war, poverty and other taboo topics. The descriptive method is used in order to describe such complex phenomena. The research is conducted in the form of a retrospective qualitative case study focusing on the historical events that are connected to the communications at Benetton. Through the following research a better understanding of shockvertising and its dynamics is reached and emotional reactions of a range of individuals is presented. In addition, the question of ethical considerations and the shock advertising effectiveness is analyzed.
Highlights
Advertisements were always blamed for manipulation and for creation of false needs focusing on increasing consumerism and less focus on social problems (Haug, 1989, Kellner, 1990).In the nineties some companies started to outstand from the crowd by producing advertisements with strong social and political messages, developing the today wellknown shock advertisement
Some people approve schockvertising due to its eye opening effect and the highlighting of the real social issues globally, while others believe that shockvertising relies heavily on emotional manipulation and companies gain using social issues commercialization in their own favor
The goal of the study is to provide a full understanding from multiple points of view of the communication between Benetton Group and the publics
Summary
Advertisements were always blamed for manipulation and for creation of false needs focusing on increasing consumerism and less focus on social problems (Haug, 1989, Kellner, 1990). In the nineties some companies started to outstand from the crowd by producing advertisements with strong social and political messages, developing the today wellknown shock advertisement. The main pioneers of shockvertising includes Benetton, Diesel and the Body Shop. Opinions on shocking ads are highly divergent. Some people approve schockvertising due to its eye opening effect and the highlighting of the real social issues globally, while others believe that shockvertising relies heavily on emotional manipulation and companies gain using social issues commercialization in their own favor
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