How to Incorporate Current Events Into Your Strategy and Avoid Controversy

Often, topical current events used in a marketing campaign can be a great way to entice a targeted demographic. Not only does the audience immediately associate with the current event being highlighted, they also subconsciously associate the marketing strategy with something new; new ideas, new products and services, etc.

One of the main questions when using current events in a marketing strategy is: where do you draw the line when it comes to subject matter, and how can you avoid backlash and controversy from the intended audience?

There are a few rules of thumb when it comes to avoiding potentially sensitive topics.

• Avoid religion- regardless of the light in which religion is portrayed in a marketing strategy, it can polarize the target market and turn customers away. Just ask the people at Federici Ice Cream.
• Don’t mention politic unless the campaign is political in nature- This one might be harder to navigate than religion. Not only should you avoid favoring a political party or candidate in your strategy, but you should avoid directly aligning with any political platforms as well. People are often very passionate about their political affiliations, and the best way to turn a potential client away is to offend their sense of right and wrong.
• Try not to make light of death- People are sensitive about death, and taking it less than seriously is an easy way to turn off the target audience. For example, try to recall the Priceline commercial with William Shatner where he scales a hotel to find his daughter and a young man in a room. After a sly insinuation by the young man, Shatner tosses him out of the hotel to seemingly plummet to his death. The creators of that commercial knew they couldn’t leave the scene on that note, and ended the ad with a shot of the young man landing, alive and intact, in the hotel’s swimming pool. Without that shot, the ad might have been taken as gruesome and violent, but the shortest of clip of the young man landing in the water makes all the difference to the audience.

There are certainly more areas that should be considered off-limits when creating a marketing strategy and campaign, but they are more common sense than these. Avoid religion, politics, and death, and your marketing strategy will run much smoother and intrigue a larger target audience.