Negative marketing – it’s probably why most of you are now reading this.
Offensive title. Offensive picture. You’re ready to be angry!
I’m sure some of you still will be even though you’ll realise that I’m not being serious with my title and just proving a point!
Content is how I started. It’s fun.
However, it evolves quickly.
Pictures then video then back to pictures with memes then live videos and now “tag a mate” seems to be big by those pages that like to attract people that didn’t realise it wasn’t remotely funny the first time let alone the 1000th.
Content is difficult, I have to do things differently as I’m a firm believer in standing out amongst the noise, however, it’s a hard sell. Most companies want to do the same thing as everyone else.
So I’ve moved away from it. I prefer to use my skills helping people build focused followers and generating leads.
However, one thing I do love to tell people is the power of the dark side – negative marketing.
I hate X-Factor but it’s one use in my life was to set a spark about negative marketing.
Every year, they had someone terrible in the final shows. Someone most people hated.
No-one ever spoke about who they liked. Social media was filled with anger at the terrible act getting through.
People’s anger was advertising the show for free whilst not damaging the brands reputation.
Not only that, other people were then voting for the terrible acts as they thought it was funny that serious fans were so outraged. They loved seeing the drama.
The winners were ITV & X-Factor.
People love complaining. More so than ever now.
People also love drama, it’s why so many people watch Eastenders despite the fact that the only drama they provide is in the form of deaths, affairs and car accidents.
One of the things I successfully implemented for an old business was to post a spoof article on our blog.
Lil Wayne (you may know him) was inducted to The Universal Zulu Nation.
The Universal Zulu Nation, for those that don’t know are a Hip-Hop awareness group that promote the original values of Hip-Hop – peace, love, unity and having fun.
Lil Wayne did not represent these things and the true Hip-Hop community was outraged.
So I decided to do a spoof article about Justin Bieber also getting inducted.
I photoshopped the Zulu Nation logo onto a picture of Justin Bieber. Gave a headline that said Justin Bieber had been inducted to The Universal Zulu Nation and that was pretty much it.
The article provided no facts. Nothing in it was from The Universal Zulu Nation or from Justin Bieber. Just an interview with a made up 15 year old girl from Basildon called Britney who’d never heard of The Universal Zulu Nation.
The result? Over 4000 shares on Facebook alone from enraged people. People who hadn’t even bothered to read the post. People who did read the article also shared it as they wanted to see the drama it caused from the headline and the picture.
It drove a lot of targeted people to our website. As we sold Hip-Hop clothing that represented the original meaning of Hip-Hop. Sales had a spike as new customers found us.
Things got so out of hand that even The Universal Zulu Nation had to post on their Facebook page stating that the story wasn’t true.
It didn’t have an impact on our brand as anyone who read the article, realised it was a spoof.
It was a negative marketing win.
So if you can combine a mixture of the potential for people to be enraged, create drama and still keep your brand values intact, you could be onto a winner.
I’m sure someone will be offended by this article but I’m also sure that this article will reach about 10 times more than all my other posts.
Just for the record, I don’t want you to go f*ck yourself and I do like you! 🙂
If you came here expecting to be angry, you still can be! Comments always welcome, good or bad!
