Fear is one of our most primal emotions, instilled from infancy. When my dad said I better stop crying or he’d give me something to cry about, do you know what I did?
I shut the hell up.
Yes, our natural instinct to avoid danger or harm is a powerful motivator and influencer of behavior. Always has been, always will be.
Not surprisingly, marketers caught on to this fact decades ago, whether they were selling financial services or personal hygiene products. And while many marketers took a respectable approach, others went straight for the gutter.
Read the full post at WebSearchSocial.com.
Perhaps you’ve seen the British charity campaign that pictures an obviously ill woman, bald, with the tag line “I wish I had breast cancer.” The copy explains that lots of money goes to breast cancer research but not enough to stopping pancreatic cancer, which is what she has. I don’t believe in evil, but I do recognize improper provocation in the name of “raising awareness.” And so does my friend whose daughter has stage 4 breast cancer and whose mother died of pancreatic cancer. It’s content we both wish we’d never seen.
John, I haven’t seen that. Making light of one type of cancer to raise awareness or funds for another clearly crosses a line. Wow.