Fascist propaganda takes over NYC subway eliciting criticism along with great buzz.

Lots of scuttlebutt over the use of Nazi imagery on several NYC subway cars to promote Amazon’s new show, The Man in the High Castle, which imagines our world had Hitler won World War 2. The campaign incited many riders to complain and inevitable criticism from the Anti-Defamation League, among others – and it did so without even using Nazism’s most reviled symbol of all, the Swastika.

I’m not surprised by the furor (no pun intended) but I’m not deterred by it either. Propaganda and advertising are supposed to illicit a reaction. That this campaign mixes the two is not gratuitous. The world would indeed be a scary place if Nazi’s were running it. That’s what the show is about. And that’s the point to this campaign. Copy ties it all together. But not before you’ve been flummoxed by the images.

I have spoken numerous times to marketing communications classes as well as at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes about the power of propaganda and its influence in modern advertising. I even use Nazi imagery as an example. It’s kind of a pet subject of mine. Ever since creating the “curiously strong mints” campaign for Altoid’s, I’ve respected the awesome power of signage. Out of home media – be it billboard, poster or experiential, when it’s done well, when it becomes iconic, is a game changer. A painted wall becomes a neighborhood landmark. There’s a semi-permanence to the medium that film and video can never possess.

Throwing stones in glass houses? One might question the campaign’s location. New York City is home to a great many Jews, many of them direct descendants of those who were killed by the Nazi regime. Maybe such images should never be foisted upon them -or anyone- in a public place (especially a railway car). It’s a fair argument. Even in today’s terror-ridden landscape, Nazi Germany still holds a special place in the cellar of evil. Its infamous symbols and propaganda demonstrate this evil with searing intensity.

That said, I’m all in on this idea. Precisely because of just how nervous it makes everyone. That means it’s working.

Is controversial advertising no longer a bad thing? As a matter of fact, it might be part of the plan.

Dying for your business…

Recently, a billboard went up for A&E’s gruesome but popular new series, The Walking Dead. For those unawares, the show is about dead people returning to life to feed on the living, aka Zombies. In this case, the board went up alongside a funeral care business, prompting countless media commentary on the “unfortunate” placement. It wasn’t just the local media that was provoked but all across America stories and pictures ran –sometimes negatively, mostly humorously- detailing the “unfortunate” juxtaposition of message and location.

After which, of course, the billboard company promptly issued an apology, calling it human error and an unfortunate mistake, and took down the ad.

Unfortunate? In one day I saw this image in my morning paper, in two of the blogs I read and on the TV news at night. That’s not tragedy, folks; that’s a windfall. For the price of one billboard, A&E got more coverage than they ever would have imagined for their show without paying a dime. And since it was editorial coverage, not advertorial, chances are great that viewers of it were actively engaged as opposed to benign.

And yes, while it may seem an unfortunate event for the funeral home, I’m betting they benefited from all the attention as well. Frankly, I’m not sure that’s even a consideration anymore…

Whether they or we like it or not, social media has broken down barriers, influencing our culture profoundly. We are no longer as shy about awkward moments. On the contrary we seem to get off on them. What once was considered embarrassing is now considered entertaining, interesting and provocative. Advertising is often the catalyst for this perfect storm. Outdoor is usually the touchstone.

Peek-a-boo!

In the above example, a health spa put up a somewhat risqué billboard advertising its waxing services. Someone inevitably complained but rather than take down the board the company sniped it with a URL: where folks could vote on whether the original ad was offensive or not!

My opinion: I think the whole thing was contrived to create buzz for the spa. The new paradigm suggests we don’t apologize for controversy but do it more.

Special note: This post will be part of my presentation to fepe: International Federation of Outdoor Advertising in Madrid.