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Alongside other notable character traits, like a knife- Why the potty mouth, then? There are several reasons: sharp wit and a habit of bad investments, Mark Twain 1. To catch the audience’s attention. There’s usually reportedly had a mouth like a sailor. He waxed philosophic something incongruous about swearing in advertising. Communicating your brand about this tendency enough times to leave us with such The Frank’s RedHot spots are one example; another is choice quotations as “Profanity is more necessary to me Kmart’s wildly successful (from a viral standpoint) “Ship than is immunity from colds,” and “Under certain circum- My Pants” online commercial: stances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, Man: Ship my pants? Right here? Ship my pants? profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” It’s this You’re kidding. latter quotation I’m interested in: the relief that swearing Employee: You can ship your pants—right here. can give. But in this case, I’m wondering whether it can Man (to woman): You hear that? I can ship my give relief—more popularity, increased engagement, an pants for free. Branding with uptick in sales—to a brand that’s chosen to use it. Woman: Wow! I may just ship my pants. The public sphere of brands, where they come out to Man: Yeah, ship your pants. Billy—you can ship speak their piece via TV, radio, the Internet, etc., is a fairly your pants, too. fucking vulgarity polite and conservative place, governed by written and Kid: I can’t wait to ship my pants, Dad. unwritten rules of conduct. Among other things, brands And so on. Sometimes swearing is just funny, considering want our respect—our “friendship,” even, on places like the source: Kmart is saying “shit” on TV! A typical comment Facebook and Twitter—and aren’t generally interested in under the YouTube clip: “OMG I DIED LAUGHING.” Lisa Svadjian seeing how many people they can alienate or ofend with 2. To give the audience the satisfaction of getting uncouth behaviour. Even in the more conversational realm the joke. Because, of course, Kmart is not actually saying of social media, brands are watching their words. “shit.” That’s the punchline—they’ve gotten away with Think of a brand as an applicant at a job interview: saying a dirty word on TV (even online TV) by not actually cautious, amenable and entirely unlikely to drop an saying it. The whole commercial is a nudge in the ribs, and F-bomb, even if her interviewer swears casually through- it spread like wildfire when it appeared in 2013. Today out the encounter. And if the interviewee—or brand— it boasts close to 33 million views and well over three decides to go ahead and take a risk in this direction, you million Facebook shares. Another comment on YouTube: can be sure it’s a very carefully calculated one. “Hahaha this is funny as ship.” But brand vulgarity does exist, of course, running 3. To make the audience feel like the brand is “one of the gamut from the subtly suggestive (Virgin Atlantic’s the guys.” Bud Light’s banned 2007 Super Bowl “Swear “Sit, shower, shave” print ad for its Revivals Lounge) Jar” commercial, which never aired on TV but made big When and why companies drop the F-bomb, to the bleeped-out (the little old lady in the Frank’s waves online, is a good example. Heavily bleeped, the ad the S-bomb and other sorts of bombs RedHot TV spots saying, “I put that s—t on everything”) features ofice workers swearing casually and frequently, to the no-holds-barred (early-detection and education in order to buy a case of Bud Light with the proceeds of organization Fuck Cancer). the ofice swear jar. Self-confident and funny enough to Lisa Svadjian 18 19 Communicating your brand

win friends quickly, the spot won an Emmy for Outstanding Virality’s correlation to business performance is dificult prime minister Stephen Harper, but—most strategically, Vulgarity, obscenity, Commercial and was voted best commercial of the first to measure—viewers may not even remember the company I believe—quite like his illustrious father, enigmatic former decade of the 2000s by readers of Adweek. behind the ad they liked so much. In Kmart’s case, it seems prime minister . The elder Trudeau famously profanity: What’s 4. It’s a natural part of the brand’s voice. It’s hard to that viewers did remember, and the company scored high mouthed “fuck of” in the House of Commons in 1971, later imagine this being the case for a retail brand, but in the in YouGov BrandIndex’s ad awareness category throughout claiming to have mouthed “fuddle duddle.” the diference? case of, say, celebrity chefs, it’s often been a requirement. 2013. However, its value perception (a pretty good Not a bad comparison to draw: yourself to the most Gordon Ramsay and Anthony Bourdain should be dropping determiner of whether customers will actually shop there) beloved prime minister of the past century, who happens Cuss words generally fall into three main categories: F-bombs, because that’s what we expect them to do. remained well below its peers. to be your father. In which case, I think we can count on Vulgarity, arguably the “safest” potty-mouth activity, Whether that “natural” inclination to vulgarity eventually In any case, one knockout ad or two (let’s not forget Trudeau’s curse words to keep coming. generally describes language that is “improper”; that is, wears thin is another matter. Kmart’s follow-up spot, “Big Gas Savings”) cannot save But not too many, of course. Even when cursing language not fit for polite company. Interestingly, many In the case of Fuck Cancer, which has built a four-letter a leaking ship, especially when the ad is promoting some- is your “thing”—again, think of foul-mouthed celebrity words considered vulgar in English (e.g., “shit,” “fuck” word right into its name, the strategy is bold and clear. The thing as unremarkable as buying online. chefs—the possibility of overuse looms large. Viewers, and some that are too strong even for our sensibilities at cancer-prevention organization aims its message at millen- Indeed, most brands still need to watch their mouths. weary of the long and frequent bleeps in shows like Sway—look them up, if you dare) derive from perfectly nials, who are arguably less sensitive to public vulgarity. It A TV commercial for Capital One’s Quicksilver card fea- Hell’s Kitchen, The F-Word or MasterChef, seemed acceptable terms brought to England by Germanic invad- declares its intentions on its website: “We’re taught not to tured Samuel L. Jackson declaring, “Unlimited 1.5% cash more tickled to see Ramsay in his Christmas specials or ers. After the Normans (from Normandy) came in and talk about our bodily functions; we’re taught not to swear. back on every purchase, everywhere, every damn day.” on his show Gordon Ramsay’s Ultimate Home Cooking, conquered the region again—so the theory goes—they Well, fuck that—we’re going to do both.” The ad received considerable backlash—is even mild vul- surrounded by his kids and dropping nary an expletive. brought their Latin-based form of French, used by the To them—to most people—cancer is a worthy object of garity ever okay for a bank?—and was soon replaced by Having cultivated a persona as the chef you love to ruling class, and the old, Germanic language became the rage, and nothing expresses rage quite as succinctly as a PG version (possibly as a response to the criticism or, hate, Ramsay seems to be implementing a shocking sign of the lower, conquered classes. Over the centuries, a well-timed F-word. as the bank maintains, part of its planned campaign rollout). rebrand: turning of the vulgarity tap entirely. the “lower class-ness” of the Germanic terms grew to “We use edgy, funny, and provocative online campaigns But sometimes it just works. A recent case of vulgarity Brands beware: judiciousness is called for, in this as in all become downright ofensive. to break through to a media-saturated generation,” the site beginning to be built into a brand: , the things. You must know your audience, be the kind of brand Obscenity is often used as a catch-all for pretty much all goes on. (The reasons for brand vulgarity multiply and blur, leader of ’s Liberal party. In 2011, while still just that “can” swear, or take a risk with your eyes wide open. forms of cussing. However, it does have a more strict defini- of course; Fuck Cancer is as interested in grabbing its audi- an MP, he shouted “Oh, you piece of shit!” at Environment And, as with all brand behaviour, it has to be authentic. tion in legal terms—objectionably sexually explicit materials. ence’s attention as it is in maintaining an authentic voice.) Minister in the House of Commons. As party As Twain remarked to his wife after she recited back to Profanity most commonly refers to language that is So, does swearing “work”? It can help brands make a leader, he’s employing the F-word with increasing frequency. him, word for word, one of his outbursts: “It would pain me blasphemous—ofensive to religious beliefs. It comes from statement, even if that statement isn’t any more profound When asked by TV host George Stroumboulopoulos to think that when I swear it sounds like that. You got the the Latin word profanus, meaning “outside the temple.” than “Hey, I’m one of you.” It certainly has a hand in making whether he needed to monitor his tongue, he replied, words right, but you don’t know the tune.” ads go viral, which these days seems to be the high-water “Shit, what do I say?” The audience broke into applause. mark of successful advertising. Trudeau is a politician who knows that the young By such standards, the Kmart “Ship My Pants” ad hit the voters of today like their leaders to be a little unbuttoned, jackpot—and the struggling brand could use a win. Yet Kmart a little of-the-cuf. In response to Stroumboulopoulos, sales continued to fall after the video appeared, and its stores Trudeau continued: “I had to make a choice early on. continue to close. (Time’s Josh Sanburn points out that this Do I have a private, secret life, or do I live fairly openly may be the point: Kmart would rather focus on its web pres- and consistently with the person I am?” As such, Trudeau ence than its falling-apart-at-the-seams stores.) cuts a figure quite unlike his chief opponent, the rigid