Over the last few years, there has been a number of controversial branding that have caught our attention. Certain brands are controversial for different reasons, meaning that some brands offer services and products which are controversial themselves or want themselves to be perceived as controversial and “out there”. Here we look through some controversial brands and whether this works for them.

American Apparel

The clothing brand is well known for their controversy surrounding their advertising and has been a continual source of criticism and debate. From their risqué ads, to over the top billboards, the brand has had both mild and serious complaints.

One campaign that particularly stood out and angered customers was their “Hurricane Sandy” sale to promote a sale of its products. Despite the devastating effect of the Hurricane, American Apparel sent out an email to their customers, offering 20% off in nine Eastern states for the next 36 hours with the line, in case you're bored during the storm.

The brand had a number of backlash from customers especially on social media, and showed no signs of apology. CEO Dov Charney commented that “part of what you want to do in these events is keep the wheels of commerce going.” Charney also noted that some consumers did use the discount, generating “tens of thousands of dollars.”– he later stated that “we were blindsided by Sandy, and with greater New York being our largest market, we estimate we lost in excess of $1.5 million in retail sales due to the storm.”

So why does the company do this? The brand seems to use this reputation to its advantage and continues to gain success through controversy and enjoy this appearance. American Apparel built their stores and stories on this appeal however what was perceived as cool at the time didn’t pay off. The brand then filed for bankruptcy and while this wasn’t all down to their branding strategy, this certainly didn’t help the company.

Benetton

Benetton is a global fashion brand and has around 5,000 stores worldwide. Since the start, Benetton has gained a reputation for shock-advertising that has whipped-up controversy and caused debate. They focus on issues that affect humanity and make people think and raise awareness for what the brand believes in. Examples of their campaign are shown below:

  

Despite the controversy, this has no doubt boosted their brand recognition and awareness. With a focus on topics such as AIDS and the Gulf War etc, the brand is like no other in the industry.

Founder, Alessandro Benetton, said: “I consider the controversial element as a very good side effect of what we're doing. It's part of the DNA of the brand to share views and vision about philosophical social issues. We've done it in the past and we'll do it in the future. Of the 500m people who saw the 'kissing' campaign, more than 80%, if I remember correctly, had a positive view of what we'd done. The fact that the Unhate Foundation supports good causes that link to the message of the campaigns, gives you a sense of the direction we're going in”

However, there has been recent news that Benetton is planning to leave their shock tactics behind as it seeks to stay in fashion. While the campaigns generated a high level of brand awareness, their sales were a different story. The company has now introduced a stronger brand identity that unifies its brand communication and product. Previously it had kept its advertising and retail campaigns separate, but are now combining both for a mature evolution and to keep up with the market.

Gap

Gap underwent a major rebranding in 2010 without any warning and created a lot of controversy from the public. The redesign attracted the kind of mainstream attention as nothing was wrong with the previous logo. Below you can see the extent of the change:

The new logo with the blue square was resized to a lighter blue colour and the typeface was replaced from Serif to Sans. The contrast between the previous GAP font being tall and thin, in comparison to the plain font meant that there was a large discrepancy between the two, the second one was not perceived to represent GAP as a fashion brand and lacked the appropriate brand rationale. As a result of the controversy surrounding the logo, Gap pulled this and went back to their original logo, making this a costly mistake for the brand.

There are many brands who have embraced their status as controversial – but some would do anything to take back the controversy since it has a negative effect on their brand. Daniel Hennessy, UK chief creative officer at Geometry Global agency, stated "Sometimes it's risky, yes; but it's better to be talked about than not talked about."

 

By Victoria Ward, digital marketing manager at Speed Agency

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