BUSINESS MONITOR
Bad taste is difficult to define – we know it when we see it or hear it, but it’s extremely subjective. What raises one person’s hackles causes another merely to shrug. So when it comes to
promotions, it’s a case of proceed with caution. PAUL CLAPHAM has some tips on how to get it right, every time . . .
. . . All done in the best
possible taste G
iven that huge breadth of human sensitivities, how concerned should marketers and their suppliers be
about the bad taste? After all, marketing is nothing if its messages donʼt engage the emotions of the target audience. Make a message so anodyne that nobody could possibly object and you have no engagement, no sale. So should we be concerned about bad taste? The answer has to be yes. This column was prompted by two pieces of insensitivity. First, Scott Fresenerʼs T-biz Network offered an 11% discount on 11/11/11 to all forcesʼ veterans. Superficially, this looks like good marketing but clearly nobody asked the question ʻDoes the deep solemnity of Armistice Day fit with an essentially frivolous discount?ʼ Then there was Activision Blizzard who launched the big selling shoot-em-up video game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in the same Remembrance Week. Kevin Maher, a columnist for the Times, described this as ʻera-defining bad tasteʼ. They doubtless had both eyes on the Christmas trade rather than the immediate calendar in November when the launch date was chosen. Tastelessness matters increasingly because of social network sites and the web in general. The complaints you might get can no longer be buried – they will be seen by customers potentially in their millions. For every person who posts
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk
negative comment a hundred think the same but donʼt bother and another hundred may read the posts. But, come on, this is the 21st century! Daytime TV is full of shock jocks. Music
“Some of the poorest taste messages you will see in public are printed on T shirts. On the one hand, you have a commercial market where demand will be filled by someone else if not you. On the other hand, you want the industry as a whole to enhance its status, to be taken seriously. The two are not exactly compatible.”
videos are one stop short of pornography. Alternative comedians (many of them now mainstream) make a living out of jokes that push the boundaries of good taste, not to mention language. And most people laugh. Equally, have you listened to the lyrics on a rap album recently? All true. But marketing, including printwear, is supposed to be a grown-up
business. Justification for poor taste by invoking the lowest common denominator is no justification. But Iʼm a simple garment decorator, not involved in choosing sensitive launch dates or creating emotionally charged messages; I just print them.
OK, but I suggest that if any marketing supplier had said to Activision Blizzard: “It might be a good idea to bring that launch date forward four days so weʼre in the week before Armistice Day”, their stock would have risen. The biggest corporations can lose perspective.
rintwear can be in something of a cleft stick on this issue. Some of the poorest taste messages you will see in public are printed on T shirts. On the one hand, you have a commercial market where demand will be filled by someone else if not you. On the other hand, you want the industry as a whole to enhance its status, to be taken seriously. The two are not exactly compatible.
P
This can impact on the business in two ways. The marketing manager targeting students for a bank, who might well consider buying printwear, could be dissuaded by seeing images of drunken students sporting those joke shirts. Similarly, if the marketing manager of a brewery or pub group takes a look at your website and sees the ever-popular “Iʼm
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