26 Jul Is It Okay To Offend People In Business?

The age old question when creating marketing campaigns is, “How do we advertise without offending anyone?”  The simple answer is that you don’t.  There will always be something that will offend someone and chances are those will NOT be your clients anyways, so you can’t worry about them.  Otherwise, you will end up offending the masses by trying to not offend the minorities.  I’m not saying get ugly and single out any certain minority; I’m saying that you can let a small group of people influence your marketing because it could hurt your business.  A classic example would be companies that ban their employees from saying Merry Christmas, when in truth it is a tiny group of people in the U.S. that may offend.  By ignoring the fact that Christmas is the season, you offend the majority which hurts your company image for the mass quantity of people you want to target.  In the end, you have to put your business first and market by making your point and keeping it honest and trustworthy.  The same goes when using various promotional products.  Some may be offensive to a few people while the majority will love it.  You have to be creative in your campaigns and sometimes shock marketing is necessary, which is simply creating some type of campaign that is shocking at first because it is out of the ordinary.  The more creative you are, the more you will be noticed.  You can stick with the same old products such as koozies, mini footballs, or promotional pens; however, think of the impact you can make with other products that stand out and are not the same old product being given out by other companies.  Good luck and let us know if you need some creative help!  And by all means, if you want to center your marketing campaign around Christmas during this season, please do so!  There are many custom Christmas ornaments that are perfect for marketing campaigns.