
11
ANATOMY OF DESIGN
It may be shocking that shock is stylish in advertising, but it is not surprising.
After busting so many taboos against nudity and sexual congress, what is left
to grab an audience's attention, advertisingwise? Where once the prevailing
hook was implicit allure and suggestive titillation-sensuousness that appealed to
the eye and maybe the groin—currently an atavistic interest in the grotesque
(and physically gross) is being tapped. Market tests are not necessary to
understand that people really do like watching train wrecks, as long as they
are not in them. Sure, they may be disturbed, and they may even avert their
eyes to some extent, ...