Shock Marketing.
Gross-Out Marketing.
I don’t recall ever learning of these terms until I thought I would research the topic I am writing about today. Read more to see just what I am talking about!
I began a different post a few days ago. As I tried to track down why a recent online purchase has resided in Manassas, Virginia for a week, it came to me that I need to write on this purchase!
We welcomed three kittens to our home last August. One is no longer, as this sweet kitty did not win her battle with an automobile. The other two have resided in our basement this winter. We were planning to send them back outdoors last week, but after I began a bit of research on finding some sort of treatment for ticks, decided to wait until we had tick collars on them. What really did me in was GROSSNESS. I should add some pictures here, but for the reader’s sake, I will not. As I was looking at a company called FurLife with the website of www.getfurlife.com I came across a video, which was something I did not want to see! There was a poor dog that had a large female tick embedded in it’s ear, with many, many, small ticks (that had hatched!) right around it. It was so disgusting that I determined that our poor cats would not go outdoors until these collars arrived in the mail.
We had considered another brand of tick collar, but have heard multiple stories about how sometimes the animals do not do well with the chemicals in them. FurLife collars are all natural, so we really wanted to wait for these collars to come in the mail.
So our poor boys, Janner and Leeli, reside in our basement, gazing into the great outdoors, waiting for the day of freedom. As they await their freedom, I await the mail and the release of these collars as they are held hostage in the state of Virginia. I did email the company today in hopes that they just might resend the collars.
The purposed of the post was to show that the sales method used, appealing to my sense of disgust for ticks, not only has contained our two cats to our basement, but has also sold me on these natural tick collars! It is a bit embarrassing to fall for this, but that video I just cannot get out of my head.
And the moral of the story (or blog post I should really say) is that I do not think I will ever want to use shock marketing or gross-out marketing to sell something!
SchrieberBE23 
FrenchJA21 
andersonsa22
Great post! I haven’t ever really thought or heard about that sales tactic before but it makes sense on how it can be majorly effective. BY showing customers how gross something can be without there solution is a strong sales strategy. Sorry to hear about your cat.
While this method of marketing can and clearly does work, it is almost so repulsive sometimes you want to steer clear entirely.
and I should have steered clear! Those tick collars seemed to attract the ticks and not deter them!