There's been the whole Gillette she-bang lately... and yes, a lot of people have had mixed opinions about it... but it's also been really widely talked about compared to lots of other AD campaigns. Is that a good or bad thing though? A few different people have said to me in so many words, 'all publicity is good publicity', when I've been complaining about people hate watching my content... but is all publicity good publicity? by Rosa Fairfield.
Photographs by Linda Smith.
People engage with something to get something out of it
I never really thought about this... but yeah, people engage with something and keep engaging with it because it provokes some sort of reaction from them. It doesn't have to be a positive reaction either. It's like... there's some films out there that I just love to watch because they're so "bad"... but bad in a good way. Like uber cheesy and cliche, that you can't help but smile or laugh. There's also plenty of photographs I've seen that have made me feel a bit disturbed but I can't help but look at them because they're so interesting.
Is there a such thing as bad publicity though?
Sure, if a lot of people perceive something as bad, it has the effect of people talking about and sharing it. Like, 'oh, look at this, this is terrible... you have to see it.' ... but what are you getting out of that? I suppose it depends on your intentions. If you're a photographer and you create something that people are outraged by, it's no good if that means that no one ever hires you again because they're so outraged by what you have done. On the other hand, it doesn't necessarily work that way, people might be queing up to hire that photographer because everyone's talking about them so they have a large audience. That's why so many publicity stunts happen. That's why YouTube has become click bate.
Maybe don't take it to an extreme...
If you're doing something controversial every single day, chances are people are just going to get bored because they expect it now. Chances are they'll probably start to get a bit annoyed with you. Then again, a lot of people get annoyed with the consent sensationalised headlines in certain news papers but most still read them out of human curiosity. It all depends on if you want to be liked or have a big audience.
Is it a bit risky?
Creating anything, even something you perceive as the most mundane and run of the mill something imaginable, still has an element of risk involved. It could still somehow go wrong by people interpreting it in the way you hadn't intended it to. This increases with more controversial topics and sometimes it can really back fire. I think everything you do has to be done with a pinch of salt.
How do you create publicity in the first place?
A.K.A how do you get people to pay attention to what you're trying to say. Well, I guess what you're doing has to be relevant, have a unique perspective and provoke that emotion. Even then though, a lot of it is still down to luck. It's what I always tell people when they tell me they're going to start a blog or YouTube. It's a tricky balance to find, it's no good doing something completely unique because there might be no audience for it or something that's too similar to what everyone else is doing because there's no need for it.
Anyway, yeah, I guess publicity is a tricky one really and depends on your intentions. What do you think? Is there any such thing as bad publicity?
* Dress gifted by Newchic