Thanks to Morgan for creating a blog post titled “Shock Tactics in Advertising– Russian real Estate” in the Canadian University marketing blog. Click the link to check it out! Watch the videos if you can, but be advised, these are not for the faint of heart.

To add on to Morgan’s post, shock tactics is a risky way of marketing and advertising a product, service, or even a message. ‘Shock Value’ has become a staple to companies that know the value of attracting the attention they need to conquer their competition and pull in profits as a result. This tactic is all about shocking the readers and customers so they can leave an impression of their product. Some folks will use foul language to shock their readers. Some will use incredible stories. And still others will tell them how they have made huge mistakes.

Basically, the main purpose of shock tactics to to get people’s ATTENTION!

Take a look at UK’s anti-smoking campaign as an example.

This is an example of a campaign that uses shock tactics in a moderate way. The ad shows the harmful effects of smoking. The shock value in here is enough to grab the attention of viewers and let them stop and think about smoking. Compared to the commercials of a real estate company in Russia which was posted in Morgan’s blog, this is less disturbing but still effective. Marketers must make sure that they make good use of shock tactics.

Remember if you put someone in a total state of shock, your chances of getting them to react to your message will go in vain. The key to using the “shock tactic” strategy is to use it in moderation and just enough to get the job done, the message across and no more. The shock tactic that the Russian real estate company used is too much that instead of getting consumers to listen, it repels them. We don’t want anyone to get a heart attack here.