Chutzpadik advertising and its effectiveness: Four studies of agencies and audiences

Abstract The creation of advertisements that attract immediate attention and simultaneously provoke thoughts and stimulate ongoing discussions is challenging. Hence, advertisers increasingly use Chutzpadik advertising, which we define as “radical advertising messaging that purposefully transgresses social norms and proscribed topics”. We conduct four studies to identify the dimensions and evaluate the effectiveness of Chutzpadik advertising. The first two studies involve interviews with 12 managers of advertising agencies and 22 members of the Israeli general public (audience members). The interviews reveal Chutzpadik advertising’s dimensions are norm violation, novelty, and audacity. In tw…