Shock Value Advertising

Annex Cat Rescue recently asked me to work on a magazine print ad for them.  I'm thrilled to do it.

I've spent several hours looking at various animal welfare ads, cat pictures and various other media looking for some inspiration.  A lot of charity ads are boring, boring, boring.  Some are cute and interesting.

I am particularly fond of these advertisements created by Leo Burnett Toronto for the Toronto Humane Society.

Very happy and upbeat - isn't it?  But is it inspiring?  Did more people adopt after seeing the ad?  Did more people donate?  It's fairly easy to identify who the target audience/s for this type of advertisement are.  I'd be curious to know how successful this campaign is.

However, I also came across some shocking ads that I found very compelling... So my question is - who responds to the shock value advertisements and why?  How are they different from the target audience for the THS ad series referenced above? (or are they?) 

I posted a poll on an internet forum that I frequent and gave the example of an ad with a photograph of a dead cat (not bloody and gruesome, but obviously dead).  The responses were 50/50 for and against that type of ad.

Some said it would motivate them, others felt it would put them off.  Different people offered different reasoning.  I don't have thorough demographics on all the individuals who responded, but it appears that younger people and males were more inclined to respond a "shock value" advertisement.  Women (particularly women over 35) were strongly opposed to it.  In the comments area, many people indicated that context is important.  If the picture is shocking but the text is hopeful, the respondants indicated they would be more inclined to respond. 

I suspect this type of an advertisement would be a little "too much" for ACR.  However, it's an interesting topic and I hope to explore it more thoroughly in the future.  Some questions I have:

Who responds to these ads (age, occupations, incomes, city, rural etc.)? How do they respond?  Is it interest only?  Do they donate?  Do they volunteer?  Are certain mediums more effective than others (print, internet, TV, radio)?

Soo many questions - so few research resources!

Comments

[John Lepp]

Hi Laurie, I'm just reading back on some of your posts... great stuff. Regarding "Shock Value ads" some much has to do with audience. I do a lot of direct mail - and of course the audience is mostly older women - and as you can imagine, shock doesn't tend to work. Alternatively, if I was doing a campaign for a charity whose audience was much younger, the even though the message would be the same, the way I could communicate that message could be completely different.