By Joshua Blackburn, Wednesday 8 November 2006 00.07 GMT
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about at all, quipped Oscar Wilde. The charity sector knows all about that. Following distressing news that 2005's list of the most complained about advertising was charity-free, pundits were left asking how the sector had become so shockingly unshocking.
Controversy has long been a handy tool for charity campaigners, whether with a bag full of dead kittens or a baby with a cockroach in its mouth. Barnardos, Peta, NSPCC, BHF and many others have all sought to shock the public into action, and the Advertising Standards Authority (Asa) lists charity campaigns as some of the most controversial it has dealt with. In their efforts to create the biggest splash, charities have developed a hard-hitting approach that is at times gruesome, offensive, violent or disturbing - but always impossible to ignore.
The problem with shock is that it is subject to the law of diminishing returns. The more you do it, the more predictable it becomes. The last few years have therefore seen charities almost trying to outdo each other. The British Heart Foundation had fat dripping from arteries, Rethink put Churchill into a straightjacket, Fathers4Justice has shocked its way into the headlines and Barnardos has become a national institution for controversy. It almost appeared that the measure of campaign success was how many complaints the Asa received.
Perhaps this is not surprising. When a campaign hits the headlines, it generates free media and public debate. Many charity issues are in themselves controversial, so how better to cut through apathy and ignorance than with a campaign that pulls no punches. If Mrs Outraged from Cleethorps is left spluttering over her breakfast cereal, then so be it. The danger, however, is when campaigns become predictably controversial, assaulting the public with disturbing images that, paradoxically, shock us into apathy, not action.
Debate over whether the sector is becoming more cautious is, however, a red herring. The real question is whether these tactics even work. The case study of traditional shock campaigns is fairly straightforward: assault your public with the mental equivalent of a frying pan. This has certainly been effective in the past, but the evidence is that, after a while, the public learns to duck. Mailings go unopened, ads go unwatched and controversy ends up backfiring.
Until recently, the answer was to bring out ever bigger frying pans but now, without wishing to push the kitchen metaphor too far, one wonders if we need a new range of utensils.
On its own, shock is fairly one-dimensional. But when combined with intrigue, humour and seduction, when the viewer is left wanting to find out more rather than turn away, charities succeed in getting people thinking. Amnesty's "Guns for Sale" campaign, Greenpeace's film targeting SUV drivers, and the Prostate Cancer Charity's radio spots with Ricky Gervais are all examples of campaigns driven by humour and surprise, each of which has created a more good-natured controversy. They are also campaigns whose success has gone viral, a product of the YouTube generation where the public helps get the message out in a flurry of forwarded emails.
This new dynamic reflects a more interesting and creative approach to capturing the public's attention. Charities must still know how to press the shock button, but they must understand that it doesn't take long before this alone becomes rather tedious. The issue is not whether charities should be more cautious but how they can keep up with a shock-worn public that, quite literally, has seen it all. The answer is not to keep turning up the voltage but to bring greater imagination, wit and intelligence to their campaigns.
Joshua Blackburn is creative director at the charity communications agency Provokateur (www.provokateur.com)
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