I am just back from a whistle-stop tour of Morocco, where dizzying displays of wares hung from souk ceilings and camels slunk along one by one, dotting the barren views from the highways. Yet the one thing that repeatedly struck me was not the cries of the spice-sellers or the persistent smell of camel-leather and the chronic presence of heroine chic-thin cats, but some very pervasive advertising. McDonalds and Starbucks haven't arrived in Marrakech just yet, and there is no "Tesco Lotus" as there is in Chaing Mai, Thailand. Instead the brand dominating the scene in Morocco is Earth Cafe. This little cafe served up vegan and vegetarian meals at Westerner prices and had three restaurants in Marrakech and one in Essaouira. Everywhere I went in the city, the sign popped up (in all likelihood a reflection of my sense of direction, rather than their marketing). Yet the small chain seemed to dominate the outdoor advertising space in Morocco: emblazoned on red stone walls in remote locations; scratched onto Berber houses up the mountainside and most attention-grabbing of all, daubed into the ground near Marrakech's airport in ten foot high letters.This latter attempt to draw meat-avoiding holiday makers was scrapped when the restaurant was reminded that this wasn't particularly eco-friendly. Neither is intruding your brand in places of natural beauty, or persuading people to let their homes become advertising. Yet it definitely caught my eye, so much so that I'm dedicating blog-space to them. So can the proverbial adage of any publicity being good publicity hold water? Or is it merely the desperate last words of soon-to-be sacked PR executives? If the publicity in question directly conflicts with the brand's core values then its communications must be self-defeating. People would pay attention if Greenpeace started daubing messages on melting ice-caps with seals' blood; but they probably wouldn't be any more inclined to join the cause.
This mis-firing advertising prompted me to consider the other brands who have challenged conventional perceptions of themselves in their marketing.
In the above examples BMW and Absolut have pushed the boundaries with provocative adverts rejecting home values and familiarity to raise a smile and hopefully a profit margin. Earth Cafe Morocco may not have the weight of a communications team behind them that Absolut and BMW have, but there was something about the recurrence of the name in bizarre locations that implied a mischievous, Banksy-esque nature; even if it left a few vegans shredding hemp in fury.
