SHOCK ADVERTISING – A NEW CHALLENGE IN NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CONTEXTS
Ala TABARCEA, Universitatea de Stat din Moldova
Аннотация
Armed with the belief that the mission of teachers, besides reflecting on the content of specialized literature in
their courses, is to enhance students’ critical analysis skills while advocating for the ethical and moral dimensions of
marketing, we set out to discuss certain scientific requirements expected from advertising creators, found within the
overwhelming amount of information available, filtered through the three pillars of marketing intelligence – psychology, sociology, and anthropology. We aim to argue how advertising creators tackle the significant challenge whereby
shock advertising can result in either success or failure, both hinging on the reactions of recipients to controversial
messages, which will be examined based on: culture and human diversity, mental processes, and individual behavior
in social context. Our previous studies highlighted the consequences arising from the ignorance stemming from mismatches between a marketer’s perception of their own performance and the client’s reality; in this study, we discuss
possible mismatches between the client’s perception and the reality of shock advertising creators.
Keywords: shock, shock advertising, target consumer reactions, incidental consumer reactions, reverse consumer
reactions, discriminatory advertising, sexist advertising.
