(We even wrote an ebook about it called “The Other C-Word: What Makes Great Marketing Great”. We’re confident enough to break some rules and ignore taboos.”Īnd since confidence is one of the most important messages you can ever send to a prospect, anything that signals confidence is worth considering. Swearing in marketing is not for the timid. And it’s one of the reasons that “Buy More Beef You Bastards” (by a beef promotion board in Australia) is one of my all-time favourite headlines. But at a time when swearing still feels strange in a marketing context, it carries this power. Of course, swearing is not the only way to surprise. But when it doesn’t look, smell and taste like marketing – when it surprises – the force-field comes down and the reader leans forward just a bit. When marketing looks, smells and tastes like marketing, the force-field stays up. When people are marketed to, they put up that invisible, anti-spin force-field to resist the charms of the wicked hype-meisters (as, let’s face it, they have good reason to do). Swear words are surprising in a marketing context and surprising audiences is one of our most important and toughest challenges. Okay, more than occasionally.īut people who see me as a Tourettes-addled boor might be surprised to hear that whenever I use a swear word, I do stop and think, “Do I need this or would a more mainstream word be just as good?” And, not uncommonly, I choose to stick with the ‘bad’ word. The upside: what shit and fuck can do for you.Īt Velocity, we do occasionally use swear words in our blog and in our content. But not for many brands and not for many situations. So, putting aside moral objections and excluding bad writing, can swearing be consciously deployed to make your marketing more effective? Is there a place for the judicious use of relevant swear words in well-crafted content? Worse, it’s lazy and tells your reader that you don’t care, have no talent, or both (as all lazy writing or speech does). That fucking would fucking be fucking annoying. If your argument against swearing is really about, ‘Those people who say ‘fucking’ every other word’, I agree. This kind of writing is not shitty because it uses the word shit, it’s shitty because it’s shitty. I also want to exclude the lazy or show-offy swearing that characterises poor writing or speaking. I’m one of these, but then I travel in some dubious circles (including Velocity Fridays at the Red Cow). This post is for people who don’t feel it’s a moral issue at all, just a question of effectiveness. If you feel swearing is immoral, then of course you shouldn’t do it. Let’s start by separating out two issues that would pollute this discussion if we didn’t exclude them right up front: It’s also about what marketing looks like when you suspend the rules (at least as a thought experiment) – and that ought to be of interest to anyone who wants to make marketing that doesn’t shout, “MARKETING!”. Putting aside knee-jerk reactions (in either direction), how might profanity work for a brand and what exactly are the penalties?Įven if you would never swear in person much less in marketing, exploring these questions might be interesting to you – because the discussion is really about the power of words, the boundaries of brand and the odd implications of taboo. When is it okay to use swear words in marketing and when is it not?
I tend to use swear words quite liberally (though I hope not gratuitously) in Velocity’s own marketing but I very rarely recommend it for client work – with maybe one or two exceptions a year.
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