Heads Up: Don’t censor me!
Hide something to make it more visible? Surprisingly, it works.
The Brief:
As the FIFA World Cup continues, brands are trying to make the most of their association with the tournament.
Companies that aren’t official sponsors are not permitted to have their logos or products appear on match grounds or in the coverage; but the strict enforcement of this rule is itself becoming the story.
This one isn’t exactly a campaign, but we can definitely learn some interesting psychological quirks from it that we can employ in our work.
The Campaign:
Several examples of FIFA’s suppression of non-sponsors have hit the headlines. One of the match grounds in San Francisco is called the “Levi’s Stadium”, but the company was told to cover their logo ahead of any World Cup games. At stadium food stands, logos on ketchup bottles were taped over to avoid promoting Heinz.
In reaction to this censorship, a few brands have capitalised on the opportunity for some stealthy marketing.
Levi’s draped their large sign outside of the stadium in fabric, ensuring the well-known shape was still visible. They then changed their instagram profile picture to match it, and did the same at several stores to get people talking. Heinz mocked the fact that even with all their branding covered up, we could still tell it was their product (and they were still the tomato sauce of choice for the stadium). Gillette joked about covering up their logo with foam, reminding us of one of their flagship products in spite of the suppression of their brand.
Why does it stand out:
✅ Curiousity? Peaked: when something is hidden from us, we naturally want to know it is. Our curiosity is innate and very hard to subvert.
✅ Power of the underdog: these are huge global brands, but they were able to position themselves as the underdog in this situation (and we all love an underdog).
✅ Indignation: there’s something about being told what we can and can’t see that sparks a sense of anger within us. We don’t just want to know what’s been hidden, but we want to know why it’s being withheld.
What can we learn from this:
This quirk is known as the Streisand Effect, defined as: “a phenomenon in which an attempt to censor, hide, or otherwise draw attention away from something only serves to attract more attention to it.”
It’s name follows a legal battle launched by singer Barbara Streisand, who tried to suppress a photograph of the California coastline that included her Malibu home from being published online. The result was that the photograph, which had been downloaded a mere 6 times before the legal action, was subsequently viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
FIFA seems to be realising this in real-time during the World Cup, unintentionally driving extra attention to the companies that didn’t sponsor the tournament.
We’ve definitely seen similar psychology used in animal welfare campaigning before, like when orgs get press around attempted suppressions of information (such as a legal threat following an undercover investigation). It certainly increases public scrutiny and undermines trust when a brand will go to great lengths to censor the reality behind their supply chains.
But are there other ways we can use this phenomenon? In situations where we’re actively trying to earn people’s attention, this method of reverse psychology - hiding it, instead - could be useful.
In short: Using censorship to our advantage might be more effective than traditional means of grabbing attention, driving genuine curiosity about our work or the problems we’re trying to expose.
Heads Up Challenge: How could censorship, or the fight against it, factor into one of your campaigns? You could take advantage of real cases of censorship, or you could fabricate it as part of your marketing.
(Copy the below into a working document that you can use for the challenge each week)
Your Brief:
Idea 1:
Idea 2:
Idea 3:
Set aside a weekly 15 minute slot to complete these weekly creative tasks and why not schedule a call with others on your team to talk through your thoughts on this topic and share ideas for you to try out?
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