Women in bikinis, champagne flavoured crisps and chocolate bunnies!

Here we go again. A step back into the mad, but wonderful world of marketing. I know I tend to harp on about this, but when you're writing a book on how daft the beast is, you tend to get immersed in the insanity of it all.

Yesterday, I was having a bash at writing about something I had read about in a very dry and dusty hardback on the theory of marketing.

I know that sounds like I either have too much time on my hands or lack good reading matter. Anyway, I reached a page which proudly proclaimed: JUXTAPOSITION, to its reader(s). I took a deep breath and read on... and was absorbed, well, mesmerised. It was a bit like that moment in 'The Jungle Book' when the snake starts hypnotising you with its kaleidoscopic eyes.

Basically, 'Juxta-whatever' is when marketeers put together stuff from all over the place that should not work. It's a total mixture of cultures, timelines, genres and places. It should not work, but of course it does.

Think the Guinness advert on the television - the one shot in black and white on a beach with rolling waves which metamorphose into white horses - all to the accompaniment of a drumbeat and a rather daft poem. Not much to do with the drink, no matter how laterally you interpret it, but a pretty memorable advertisement, all the same.

Think the advertisement above. A woman in the black bikini and angel wings advertising a cure to female incontinence. That's mixing up so many things, I don't know where to start! But whatever the initial intention of the marketing people, I am dead certain it will court controversy.

Think this one - the packet of champagne and truffle flavoured crisps. That's quite nice and not controversial at all, unless you take exception to any bag of crisps that is not cheese and onion or salt and vinegar. It's the putting together of stuff which has no place in the same packet - a mixture, which should never work. It is also mixing what marketeers call 'high and low culture' in a 'fragmented' sort of way. But that's another story (page 156 in my book, I think).

Juxtaposition is the mixing of everything up and crucially, making the customer think. And maybe, chuckle a little. Or perhaps frown. Then... if you're really lucky, you get a torrent of complaints, so that your product gets a mention on 'News At 10' - it doesn't get much better than that.

Remember those Easter chocolate rabbits that Waitrose produced and all the fuss that ensued, simply because they named the bunnies: Crispy, Fluffy and Ugly.

The Waitrose marketing people tried to be clever by naming their rabbits from bunnies in popular culture (i.e. Crispy Duckling, Ugly Duckling etc.). What they had not thought through properly were the racist undertones of naming the chocolate bunny - Ugly!

That hit the headlines. Waitrose had to scrub the 'name' idea and... all their stores sold out of their bunny stock, almost within a day.

So, this sort of thing can backfire - and frequently does, even though sales may soar It's a dangerous game to play. But that's the joy of throwing stuff together and promoting it in a slightly more radical way.

Juxtaposition is a risky game to play which can work brilliantly, but can court disaster, if it treads a little too close to the boundary of controversy.

OK - just wanted to get that off my chest. I'll now wade into deeper waters with something called DE-DIFFERENTIATION and then the biggie... ANTI-FOUNDATIONALISM.

All fascinating insights into an industry which calls itself a science, but is really just the art of getting you to take your plastic out and to start swiping!