Be risky, dangerous and take a chance!

As I keep saying all the time, the best marketing is the bravest, because it makes an impression and... is remembered. Having spent the last two years researching and writing 'The Anti-Marketeer's Handbook', I've come across some brilliant pieces of bravery - especially when it comes to outright, brutal self-deprecation. The poster above appeared at Oxford Circus Tube station recently and not only engages us in a little story, but also attacks marketing people (which immediately gets the reader on its side), is starkly honest about why the poster is up there in the first place (to increase sales revenue of OASIS drinks) and finally, asks the reader to take a photo of the poster and to 'share' it. It is a subtle masterpiece of anti-marketing, because it 'hates' itself on so many levels, even offering the reader the deal that if he or she buys an OASIS drink, then the OASIS marketing team will stop cluttering up our lives with their pointless advertising.

Of course, the masters of anti-marketing are the Guinness people. They have produced many inspirational postmodernist epics to get people to have a good laugh at their cool, dark drink. The above poster appeared in the aftermath of Ireland's defeat at the recent rugby World Cup to the New Zealand 'All Black' side. To encourage customers to turn away from their product for the day (because of the 'black' connotation) and drink a competitor's (Carlsberg's Irish 'green' branding) takes the anti-marketing ethic to a whole new level! Attacking yourself and your marketing team is one thing, but marketing a competitor is not just brilliant, clever and innovative, but also shows immense confidence.

Attacking your own product is one thing, but having a go at your own capital city at your main airport, is raising the anti-marketing bar another notch. The good people at the Helsinki Tourist Bureau tried this banner last year after criticism that Finland in the winter months is a dark and inhospitable place. Instead of trying to portray the place in a better light, they went with the flow and accepted that it is a pretty dire destination in November and then patted the 'badass' visitor on the back on arrival, for his or her bravery.

Finally, you could not have a piece on self-hate without mentioning the Marmite people. They have been attacking their own product for decades. They break all the rules of marketing with virtually every campaign with their 'love/hate' relationship with the public. Not many companies would have the gall and audacity to manage this successfully, but to create the poster above of a scowling woman, up to her waist in dark, black goo, under a caption which highlights the word 'hate', is bravery pushed right to the anti-marketing limit!

Attacking your own product or brand might seem suicidal to the traditional marketeer, but when the whole point of marketing and advertising is to create a stir, be creatively clever, humorous (if you can manage it) and most of all, remembered, then taking that jump into the anti-marketing unknown, can make the splash all marketeers so desperately need. And anyway, surely is it far better doing it this way, than just having your poster looked at once, yawned at twice and forgotten after 3 seconds? The message is clear to all marketing people: be risky, dangerous and take a chance!