The Rebel Yell PR Strategy

The rebel yell PR strategy is one of my favourites.

There are some brands we love a little bit more than others.

We love the brave.
We love the rebels.
We love the mis­fits.
We love the underdogs. 

We love the smart minor­ity. We love those who dare stick their neck out and risk their business.

The rebels we cel­eb­rate man­age to come out in front of a sig­ni­fic­ant shift in our soci­et­al value sys­tem. Yes, it’s a ques­tion about tim­ing — and a bit of pub­li­city momentum.

Here we go:

Controversy as a PR Strategy

Sparking con­tro­versy as a PR strategy is often frowned upon. It’s seen as a cheap trick to attract attention. 

Still, brands can reap sig­ni­fic­ant bene­fits; con­tro­versy cre­ates a rift in pub­lic opin­ion between them and us. 

Rock and roll were con­sidered dev­il music by the late major­ity for quite some time. Unethical, even. It was push­ing the bound­ar­ies of what was socially accept­able. More import­antly, rock and roll is still around today.

After all — Elvis Presley was a rebel.

If being con­tro­ver­sial is a power­ful PR strategy, what’s the catch? Because there must be a catch, right?

Smoking Rebels

In 1928, George Washington Hill, the pres­id­ent of the American Tobacco Company, hired Edward Bernays, today known as the fath­er of pub­lic rela­tions, to help him recruit women smokers.

As a way of dis­play­ing a bur­geon­ing move­ment of women’s rights in the US, female celebrit­ies and influ­en­cers star­ted smoking cigar­ettes out in the open as a sign of eman­cip­a­tion since smoking cigar­ettes in pub­lic was some­thing only “fallen” women did.

Bernays hired women to march while smoking their “torches of free­dom” in the Easter Sunday Parade of 1929, a march tra­di­tion­ally well-covered by the media. Of course, this con­tro­versy sparked lots of pub­li­city for the cause.

The cam­paign helped push the women’s move­ment for­ward.
That’s good.

But it also per­suaded more people to take up smoking.
That’s … not good.

“Make Parents Angry”

Don’t get me wrong. Someone might think that smoking is good or that grown-ups should be allowed to decide what’s best for them­selves. I respect that. 

But the crit­ic­al point here is that it’s pos­sible to spark con­tro­versy for controversy’s sake. It’s pos­sible to scare people sense­less. It’s pos­sible to shock or gross people like American Apparel, who face lots of pub­lic out­rage for their sex­ist ads. 

Still, American Apparel is piss­ing some people off. Not every­one. And that’s the key to a suc­cess­ful strategy based on controversy. 

The notori­ous tal­ent man­ager and film agent Shep Gordon, who pulled off many con­tro­ver­sial PR stunts in his long career, summed up his wis­dom in this state­ment: ¹Shep Gordon. (2023, December 21). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​S​h​e​p​_​G​o​r​don

Teenagers espe­cially tend to be inter­ested in con­tro­ver­sies that get their par­ents gasp­ing for air in shock. It’s an act of rebellion.

“Make par­ents angry!”
— Shep Gordon, tal­ent man­ager and film agent ²Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon. (2023, December 18). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​S​u​p​e​r​m​e​n​s​c​h​:​_​T​h​e​_​L​e​g​e​n​d​_​o​f​_​S​h​e​p​_​G​o​r​don

The Amplification Hypothesis

It’s com­mon to find that coun­ter­ar­gu­ments strengthen exist­ing beliefs instead of weak­en­ing them. 

The harder you attack someone verbally, the more you con­vince them of their belief, not yours.

The phe­nomen­on is known as the amp­li­fic­a­tion hypo­thes­is, where dis­play­ing cer­tainty about an atti­tude when talk­ing with anoth­er per­son increases and hardens that attitude.

“Across exper­i­ments, it is demon­strated that increas­ing atti­tude cer­tainty strengthens atti­tudes (e.g., increases their res­ist­ance to per­sua­sion) when atti­tudes are uni­valent but weak­ens atti­tudes (e.g., decreases their res­ist­ance to per­sua­sion) when atti­tudes are ambi­val­ent. These res­ults are con­sist­ent with the amp­li­fic­a­tion hypo­thes­is.“
Source: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ³Clarkson, J. J., Tormala, Z. L., & Rucker, D. D. (2008). A new look at the con­sequences of atti­tude cer­tainty: The amp­li­fic­a­tion hypo­thes­is. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, … Continue read­ing

How does the amp­li­fic­a­tion hypo­thes­is work? 

In a threat­en­ing situ­ation or emer­gency, we resort to the prim­al (fast­est) part of the brain and sur­viv­al instincts (fight, flight and freeze). ⁴Surviving the Storm: Understanding the Nature of Attacks held at Animal Care Expo, 2011 in Orlando, FL.

Establishing com­mon ground and exhib­it­ing empathy demon­strates a genu­ine under­stand­ing of their per­spect­ive, fos­ter­ing trust and open­ness to your ideas. Conversely, a stra­tegic mis­match of atti­tudes can serve as a power­ful coun­ter­meas­ure if your object­ive is to deflect per­suas­ive attempts.

Persuade

To per­suade, align your atti­tude with the tar­get. Otherwise, you will only act to cre­ate resistance.

Provoke

To put off a per­suader, mis­match their atti­tudes. When they are logic­al, be emo­tion­al, and vice versa. 

Learn more: The Amplification Hypothesis: How To Counter Extreme Positions

The Rebel Yell Statement

Copywriter Kevin Rogers pub­lished this simple yet effect­ive script to improve your storytelling, the rebel yell state­ment, named after the legendary rock anthem by Billy Idol.

Here’s the rebel yell state­ment script for you to try:

My name is _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​, I love _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​ but was fed up with _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​. So I cre­ated _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​ that _________.

Here’s an example by Rogers on Steve Jobs:

My name is Steve, I love com­puters but was fed up with the snail’s pace of com­mer­cial tech­no­logy. So I cre­ated a user-friendly com­puter that pro­cesses inform­a­tion faster than any­thing else out there today.

Here’s the rebel yell state­ment I wrote for this blog, Doctor Spin:

My name is Jerry, I love PR, but was fed up with “social media experts” giv­ing cli­ents bull­shit advice. So I cre­ated Doctor Spin to share action­able insights based on aca­dem­ic research, hands-on exper­i­ence, and passion.

Learn more: The Rebel Yell Statement

Pick a Fight With a Stronger Foe

There are count­less mean­ing­ful rebel­lions for brands to par­ti­cip­ate in. The secret is to identi­fy a Stupid Majority and a Smart Minority.

Stupid major­ity = a major­ity of today that will stead­ily decline into a minor­ity of tomorrow.

Smart minor­ity = a minor­ity of today that will grow into a new major­ity of tomorrow.

Alas:

Stupid Majority + Smart Minority = PR Success

Don’t want to fight?

There’s con­sumer­ism to rebel against. Capitalism. Communism. Climate. Religion, even. Heck, you could even rebel against tech­no­logy tak­ing over our lives. Whatever.

Here’s the key to using con­tro­versy as a power­ful strategy:

You become a rebel by pick­ing a fight with someone stronger than you to cre­ate your desired future. 

THANKS FOR READING.
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