If there’s one thing that keeps marketing teams up at night (there’s more than one, btw), it’s the fear of getting it wrong.
We pour over KPIs, benchmarks, brand guidelines, and ROI as if marketing were a branch of applied physics. We behave as if there's a single, correct answer to every creative challenge, and that answer can be unearthed through data, process, and PowerPoint.
But marketing isn't physics. It’s closer to poetry.
And sometimes, the very ideas that seem like absolute howlers—those rejected in the first round of brainstorms, dismissed as “too risky” turn out to be the ones that work best.
The Reason?
Most of modern marketing rests on the faulty assumption that people are rational agents who weigh up ads like they're comparing home insurance quotes. In reality, most people are making decisions in a blur of distraction, habit, emotion, and unconscious bias. And in that blur, the so-called “bad ideas” often cut through far better than the sensible ones.
Take, for example, Marmite’s famous “Love It or Hate It” campaign. A textbook bad idea. Why on earth would you actively remind half the country they hate your product? And yet, it worked brilliantly - precisely because it did what conventional campaigns rarely manage: it made Marmite unignorable. By polarising the audience, it created tribal loyalty among fans, gave detractors something fun to say about it, and carved out a space for the brand in national conversation.
The Weird, the Unlikely, and the Absurd Often Win
When Red Bull launched, it priced itself significantly higher than every other energy drink. That’s an… unusual marketing strategy. Yet it worked. Why? Because the pricing signalled something. It made Red Bull feel rare, potent, and illicit—as though it had been smuggled in by someone in a leather trench coat.
The worst possible marketing plan, on paper, often wins in practice because it bypasses reason and speaks directly to emotion, status, or curiosity. These are the currencies of attention.
Let us not forget: advertising is not about logic. It is about seduction. And seduction is often a little bit barmy.
We are so terrified of wasting money that we often waste it by being boring. And yet, what is the biggest waste of all? Spending money on work that no one notices. Safe campaigns are not safe—they're invisible. It’s the odd, the awkward, and the “is this even allowed?” ideas that get remembered.
This is not a call for chaos. It’s a call for considering a bit of mischief. A celebration of those ideas that trigger arguments in meetings but turn into website case studies six months later.
So next time you find yourself instinctively dismissing an idea because it “doesn’t make sense,” pause. Ask yourself: Is this our Marmite moment?
In a world where everyone’s following “best practice”, sometimes the only way to really stand out is to break a few rules.