Rebels with a Marketing Cause

The authors of the new book Punk Marketing talk about the emergence of advertising that rejects tradition and embraces edgy attitude

by Reena Jana

Punk-rock impresario and Sex Pistols producer Malcolm McLaren once said, "Punk was just a way to sell trousers." The quote appears, appropriately, in a new book, Punk Marketing, by Richard Laermer, chief executive of public-relations firm RLM PR, and Mark Simmons, a marketing consultant and former executive at hot ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

The duo defines punk as "an attitude of rebellion against tradition" and the genre of punk marketing as "a new form of marketing that rejects the status quo and recognizes the shift in power from corporations to consumers." They apply the term to any type of ad or marketing campaign that defies traditional tactics—think consumer-generated ads that spread via YouTube or guerrilla-marketing stunts such as the Cartoon Network's controversial electronic displays that were mistaken for bombs by Boston residents last month (See BusinessWeek.com, 02/09/2007, "Guerrilla Marketing Gone Wild"). The book, which is perhaps not as rebellious as the snappy title suggests, is best seen as a neatly organized time capsule of late-2000s marketing and ad strategies.

While Laermer and Simmons christen today's newest forms of advertising "punk," giving them an air of youthful edginess, the authors also place current ad trends within the context of media history.

For instance, Laermer and Simmons point out that in the 1950s, marketers created TV shows to push products. So the current trend of company-produced shows serving as ads, such as those promoting Unilever's Axe body spray on MTV, aren't really a new concept. The authors also argue that the remote control, rather than TiVo (TIVO), delivered the first blow to TV ads. By allowing consumers to switch stations during commercial breaks and skip 30-second spots, the remote forced marketers and ad executives to come up with imaginative ways of capturing consumers' attention.

Taken together, their anecdotes show that truly original, engaging, and—most important—surprising ads will always prevail, whether they're labeled "punk" or not.

The book features the occasional dubious prediction, such as "someone will make a bundle in the next few years with $100 Qwerty keyboard accessories that can be connected to phones." (The idea, presented in a footnote, seems unlikely, as consumers are growing more and more comfortable thumb-typing on small keys.) But the elegantly designed book, illustrated with pencil drawings, offers a spunky snapshot of today's trends. BusinessWeek.com's Reena Jana spoke with Laermer and Simmons about how they coined the phrase "punk marketing," and real-world examples of it, both from the pages of the book and beyond.

What do you mean by the term "punk marketing"?

Simmons: I was a teen in the 1970s, and in 1977, punk was such a breath of fresh air. Marketing needs that same breath of fresh air today.

Laermer: In the States, the whole idea of punk was "stand up and slap people in the face…."

Simmons: And punk marketing is about always having a fresh ideas. We see a need for a punk attitude now.

Laermer: Hence this book. We want people to use it. And that also means making notes on the pages and submitting suggestions to our Web site [www.punkmarketing.com].

What campaigns exemplify punk?

Laermer: Here's an example. I'm not a fan of chain restaurants. But I saw a print ad for Outback Steakhouse in USA Today recently. It featured a picture of a red chili pepper with seeds falling out. It looked succulent. The seeds were shaped like boomerangs [the restaurant's logo]. In tiny letters, there was a line: "Our seeds aren't shaped like boomerangs, but we thought this was funny." I would call this punk, because it's not what you expect from ad copy.