This world is riddled with saturated, safe, formulaic marketing. We get it. It sells. But sometimes the most successful campaigns are the ones that make you lean back and ask, "Did they really just do that?" Sometimes the most outrageous, disgusting, or absurd visuals are the ones that carry a marketing campaign from ‘outstanding’ to ‘legendary’.
Day by day this is becoming more and more uncommon. Someone brave along the chain of marketing agencies to willingly use design and visual spectacle in a way that doesn’t simply escape from conventional wisdom but disrupts the notion of what you are allowed to do.
This is what we call stupid bravery.
Stromae: “Formidable” Music Video (2013)
The "Formidable" campaign is a masterclass in weaponizing visual ‘societal’ ugliness. As his director acknowledged, the idea was born after realizing their polished, high-budget clips were being outperformed by a viral clip of Stromae eating in his car that was filmed by a hater. The logic was clear, polish no longer guaranteed engagement. Stromae’s “Formidable” music video features the ugly visual of an intoxicated celebrity in the morning, shouting lyrics in a square while secretly being filmed by hidden cameras. While the public instinctively ignores a genuinely drunk, broken man, the celebrity factor changed everything: people filmed it and posted it.
This was a spectacular act of stupid bravery by Stromae that transformed potential shame into a viral news story that gained traction before the release of his, at the time, new album. Most celebrities have PR coordinators just for this reason, but Stromae went so far to even trick the police in the music video.
But stupidity doesn’t always mean being pathetic in public to get views. Stupidity sometimes means doing the exact opposite of what your opponents are doing. Especially if your opponents are super popular and successful like McDonalds.
Burger King: The Moldy Whopper (2020)
In 34 days your Whopper could look like this. How does this make money? In a world where food marketing is all about glossy, perfect, appetizing visuals, Burger King did the unthinkable and launched a high-profile campaign centred around a photograph of their flagship product, the Whopper, covered in mold after 34 days.
The entire campaign's graphic design was a nauseating image of the Whopper in various stages of decay, with a countdown of days (Day 1, Day 15, Day 34) in clean, minimalist typography underneath. They dared to use the visceral, the repulsive and the uncouth. The most ultimate sin in food advertising to take a jab at other fast food eateries. Your food isn’t natural. Ours is. Look how natural it is. Truly a stupid idea that shouldn’t work. And yet it It generated over 2 billion impressions and helped to boost Burger King’s sales by 4%.
What happens though when what you’re willing to do isn’t about shock value. What happens when what you’re visually making, just doesn’t make any sense? What if you’re trying to visualise ‘stupidity’?
Diesel: Be Stupid (2010)
Diesel's famous "Be Stupid" campaign, created by the agency Anomaly, is the ultimate celebration of visual audacity. The campaign's entire philosophy was an act of stupid bravery: it positioned "stupidity" as the only path to originality. The visual identity relied on stark and provocative photography showing absurdly illogical scenarios, a direct endorsement of bad judgment, or what people call, Stupidity.
This visual strategy intentionally broke the sensible rule of aspirational fashion marketing which typically promotes intelligence and control with models under studio spotlights and the clothing as the forefront. Instead, Diesel used these static images to align its brand with non-conformity and raw energy. The bold font doesn’t even stand a chance to the even bolder stunts being committed by the models. These ads were ahead of it’s time, reflecting the, at the time, meme culture of impact font and funny, goofy fail imagery that 9gag was built upon.
In the words of the great wrestler Randy Savage, “There’s only one guarantee in life, that there are no guarantees in life”. Stupid sometimes just works. Sometimes it doesn’t (I think). You just gotta risk looking stupid which takes bravery. Be brave to risk. Be brave to question conventions. Be brave to make something ugly. Be brave to do the unconventional. Be brave to be stupid. Maybe that’s what the world needs right now
Sources:
https://norient.com/video/jerome-guiot
https://genius.com/Stromae-formidable-lyrics
https://www.brandvertising.ch/2024/02/moldy-whopper/
https://guerillamarketingarchive.com/the-moldy-whopper-by-burger-king/
https://www.adsoftheworld.com/campaigns/the-official-be-stupid-philosophy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4h8uOUConE
https://youlookfab.com/2010/06/04/be-stupid-diesels-eye-catching-campaign/