European Journal of Marketing

Preliminary investigation of the communication effects of “taboo” themes in

advertising
Ouidade Sabri
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“Taboo” themes
Preliminary investigation of the in advertising
communication effects of “taboo”
themes in advertising
215
Ouidade Sabri
Sorbonne Graduate Business School, Paris, France Received September 2009
Revised December 2009
Accepted February 2010
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to fill a gap in the literature of taboo imagery in advertising
by drawing on cognate disciplines to build a conceptual framework and identify the characteristics of
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taboo-challenging advertisements and the audiences who react to them.

Design/methodology/approach – Data collected by 22 in-depth individual qualitative interviews
in Morocco and France were subjected to two-stage formal content analysis.
Findings – This study reveals the importance of normative social influence, the properties of the
taboo, contagion from the content of the ad to the brand and to customers, and ambivalent emotional
reactions. The valence and the intensity of the responses to such advertising depend on personal,
interpersonal and situational factors.
Research limitations/implications – The conclusions are based on findings from a relatively
small number of respondents reacting to one type of taboo only, but they offer a useful theoretical
framework and an empirical basis for future research on the communication effects and effectiveness
of taboo in advertising.
Practical implications – The study offers advertisers a better understanding of the factors and
processes likely to influence consumers’ reactions to the strategy of invoking taboo themes in
advertising campaigns, with positive implications in terms of audience segmentation and media
selection.
Originality/value – Despite the prevalence of “taboo advertising”, little research-based analysis has
so far been available to academics or practitioners.
Keywords Advertising effectiveness, Content analysis, Advertising
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
The AIDS crisis of the mid-1980s was the prelude to a radical departure in marketing
communications, marked by the arrival of advertising campaigns that dared to
contravene certain social taboos (Wilson and West, 1995). It was then that the first
advertising messages advocating the use of condoms appeared, and that subsequently
famous Benetton advertisements dealt with such significant taboos as the sexuality of
priests and nuns, homosexuality, racism, and capital punishment. Following that lead,
many other advertisers showed no compunction in exploiting other taboo themes as a
deliberate creative strategy, a trend that has continued during the intervening two
decades (Pope et al., 2004). Examples would be the campaigns developed by Dior,
Sisley, Calvin Klein, French Connection UK, TV News, Channel 4, and even Breitling.
Very few academic research studies have harnessed this particular creative fad European Journal of Marketing
Vol. 46 No. 1/2, 2012
among advertising practitioners by studying the use of taboo-evoking stimuli in pp. 215-236
advertisements as a substantive field of enquiry. The seminal paper linking taboos and q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0309-0566
advertising (Manceau and Tissier-Desbordes, 2006) has remained unheeded in the DOI 10.1108/03090561211189301
 EJM academic community. The literature has, however, taken an interest in certain kinds of
46,1/2 visual and verbal treatment of taboo subjects, in order to understand the extent to which
they provoke an audience (De Pelsmacker and Van Den Bergh, 1996; Vézina and Paul,
1997) or shock it (Dahl et al., 2003). In so far as these studies introduce the concept of
taboo as one of the components of provocation or shock, they show only that the taboo is
relayed as a second-level effect, and do not take into account the multiple connotations of
216 the very description “taboo”: as behaviour forbidden in a particular social setting, as a
prohibited topic of normal conversation, as an unacceptable image, and so on.
Arising from this shortage of theoretical reflection on the concept of taboo, the first
objective of this study is dominantly conceptual. Based on a review of the earliest
discourses on the subject, the dimensions of taboo will be identified and a working
definition proposed. This conceptual frame of reference will lead the way to exploitation
of work in other fields of study, such as ambivalence (Freud, 1912; Merton, 1976; Otnes
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et al., 1997) or normative social influence (Deutsch and Gerard, 1955; Fishbein and Ajzen,
1975), and will thereby enrich existing work on provocation and shock. The second
objective is exploratory, concerned with investigation of the processes set in motion
following exposure to a taboo-invoking message or image, and aiming at a clearer
understanding of the reactions of an audience confronted by such advertisements. In
pursuit of this aim, a qualitative research study conducted in two distinct cultures,
French and Moroccan, will address three important research questions:
RQ1. How do individuals perceive “taboo advertising”, and what are their reactions
to brands advertised in that way?
RQ2. Do the identified dimensions have a particular effect on those perceptions?
RQ3. Do the perceptions vary according to personal attributes and the situational
context?
The first part of this paper presents a critical review of the relevant literature. The
second deals with the qualitative methodology, and relates the findings to the
theoretical framework deployed. The third part discusses the contributions of the
study, analyses its limitations, and suggests fruitful avenues for further research.

2. Taboo
More than a century ago, the ethnographer Van Gennep (1904) identified three
characteristics of the phenomenon: prohibition, sacredness, and contagion. A little
later, Freud (1912) introduced another taboo characteristic, emotional ambivalence.

2.1 Prohibition
Anthropologists commonly describe a taboo as a prohibition that shapes one’s daily
acts (Van Gennep, 1904; Frazer, 1911; Webster, 1942). Steiner (2004) quotes a definition
of taboo by the celebrated anthropologist Margaret Mead in the Encyclopaedia of the
Social Sciences:
A negative sanction, a prohibition whose infringement results in an automatic penalty
without human or superhuman mediation.
Such prohibitions were the basis for behavioural norms, internalised by society.
Today, all societies have their taboos, mainly related to death (Ariès, 1981; Walter,
 1991) and sex (Freud, 1912; Davis, 1982; Willner, 1983). For instance, Davis noted that “Taboo” themes
those proscribing homosexuality, transvestism and bestiality, which characterize
European and North American societies, can be seen as important defenders of ethnic,
in advertising
religious or institutional individuality.

2.2 Sacredness
This second characteristic originally attributed to taboo (Van Gennep, 1904; Bergson, 217
1932; O’Reilly, 1948) has been a point of contention among anthropologists, Bergson
arguing that it is a necessary prerequisite for the genesis of a taboo. Sacredness creates
boundaries between objects considered impure or ordinary and those held sacred, such
as holy people or places. Transgression of taboos is thus linked to moral impurity and
personal danger (Douglas, 1971). Other authors have argued against this characteristic
of taboo. Frazer (1911) noted that people make no moral distinctions between the
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sacred and the profane, or the pure and the impure. The eminent sociologist Durkheim
(1915) also questioned the sacred nature of taboo. Distinguishing between religious and
magic taboos, he showed that the former draw their relevance from sacredness while
the latter relate to profane objects, and their transgression does not invoke divine
sanctions. Because sacred taboos are seldom if ever challenged in advertisements (as
distinct from other forms of communication), the sacredness dimension was omitted
from the data collection phase of this study.

2.3 Contagion
Whatever is bad or forbidden in a taboo act or object becomes contagious. Van Gennep
(1904, p. 16) likened this effect to a “disease contracted by contact with an impure
animal”. Reinach (1906, p. 19) asserted that the transgressor of a taboo was
contaminated by act of transgression and that, once a taboo had been violated, only
purification of some sort could redeem him. Freud (1912) similarly asserted that anyone
who violated a taboo became taboo.

2.4 Emotional ambivalence

Freud (1912, p. 123) added a fourth characteristic of taboo, in defining taboo as
“a prohibited action towards which there exists in the unconscious a strong
inclination”, asserting that exposure to a taboo object or person evoked mixed
emotions, pleasant and unpleasant. The idea of violating the taboo might be exciting,
but there would be a fear of the consequences that could result from doing so. In short,
the reaction to a taboo interdict is emotional ambivalence.

3. Taboo in advertising
Drawing upon the literature of taboo just described, we propose a working definition.
Taboo advertising can be defined as follows:
“Taboo advertising” is that which uses images, words or settings to evoke a taboo for a
proportion of the target audience. It can shock or offend by transgressing internalised norms
or by triggering emotionally ambivalent responses, such as simultaneous excitement and
guilt.
Like the multidimensional “offensive” advertising stimuli discussed by Barnes and
Doston (1990), taboo-challenging in advertising can take at least two forms. The
designation can refer to the promotion of a taboo product, such as funeral services or
 EJM condoms (Wilson and West, 1981; Fahy et al., 1995; Waller, 1999), or to taboo-violating
46,1/2 execution of creative platforms.
The literature search found no research study that has yet applied the
anthropological, sociological and psychological characteristics of taboo specifically
to the effects of its deliberate use in the creation of advertising themes and images to
promote a product that is essentially irrelevant to the taboo (Manceau and
218 Tissier-Desbordes, 2006). Therefore, our study focuses on three of the four
characteristics identified in the previous section, and their potential effects on
consumer perceptions and reactions. “Sacredness” has been excluded because, in
practice, few advertisements feature sacred objects or language.

3.1 Communication effects: normative dimension

Given the consensus in the literature that taboo is an internalised prohibition, the
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infringement of which results in an automatic sanction, the violation of taboos in

advertisements is categorized by Dahl et al. (2003) as a “norm transgression”, which
can result in negative evaluation of the message and condemnation of the advertiser.
There have been numerous boycotts of companies exploiting taboos in creative
executions, or placing the advertising in publications or programmes deemed
offensive. For instance, the Catholic League in the US called for a public boycott of a
major beer brand, on account of a poster that dressed the disciples in Leonardo da
Vinci’s iconic painting of the Last Supper in leather, and seated them at a table strewn
with sex toys (Beirne, 2007). Similarly, the American Family Association boycotted
Procter & Gamble because it advertised during mainstream networked television
programmes they nevertheless deemed to be generally offensive or specifically
homosexual-friendly (Stoll, 2009). These are both examples of the impact of the social
normative influence of a perceived taboo on brand evaluation and its purchase
intention. By extension, individuals who perceive an advertisement as taboo-violating
may develop a negative attitude towards the brand and a negative purchase intention.
Moreover, that perception will render them more susceptible to the “subjective norms”
forming an element of the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980), and
hence more likely to respond negatively in thought and deed.

3.2 Communication effects: contagion dimension

The consensus in the literature that the taboo character of an object can be contagious
is expressed today in terms of the theory of the movement of cultural meaning
(McCracken, 1986), which asserts that meaning moves first from the culturally
constituted world to consumer goods and then from these goods to the individual
consumer. That process is assisted by advertising, and in particular by transfer of the
symbolic properties of celebrities featured in advertising to the product endorsed and
thence to consumers’ purchase and use of it (McCracken, 1989), a conceptualisation
empirically supported by Langmeyer and Walker (1991).
Thus, typical consumers can be expected to hold negative attitudes towards
taboo-challenging advertising and the products it promotes, and so to resist purchase.
Logically, the sole exception would be those who want to distance themselves from a
cultural group by deliberately behaving in ways that violate its norms and
expectations.
 3.3 Communication effects: ambivalence dimension “Taboo” themes
Following Freud’s identification of emotional ambivalence towards a taboo in advertising
prohibition, more recently defined as simultaneous or sequential experience of
multiple emotional states (Otnes et al., 1997), many social psychologists have
documented its role in determining behaviour (Jost and Burgess, 2000; Fong and
Tiedens, 2002), yet little attention had been directed until recently to its relevance in
advertising, beyond the idea that an advertisement can trigger simultaneously positive 219
and negative emotions (Edell and Burke, 1987). Since the turn of the century,
researchers in marketing communications have begun to close that gap (Williams and
Aaker, 2002; Stevens et al., 2003; Janssens et al., 2007), showing that advertising
messages and images can be a source of such ambivalence, expressed in the alternation
between such positive and negative real-life emotions as pleasure and distaste. If this
literature offers the foundation for a theoretical explanation of the effect that the
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phenomenon has on an audience’s reaction to an advertiser’s initiatives, the nature of

the stimuli capable of precipitating such affective responses question remains
uncertain.
With respect to Freudian interpretations, these first studies of provocation and
sexual imagery in advertising offer preliminary empirical justification for the
ambivalence dimension of taboo in advertising, showing that imagery which is
sexually explicit, provocative or taboo-violating does generate positive affective
responses, as well as negative. On the one hand, Manceau and Tissier-Desbordes (2006)
have shown that discomfiture, embarrassment and even mental disturbance are
provoked by such stimuli. Many other researchers have found that feelings of shame,
guilt, embarrassment and discomfort attest to the crisis of conscience suffered by
individuals who transgress norms (Keltner and Buswell, 1997; Eisenberg, 2000;
Heywood, 2002). On the other hand, researchers have found positive affective
responses to these same stimuli (LaTour, 1990), notably pleasure and excitement
derived from sexual imagery. We thus conclude that taboos in advertising will trigger
emotional ambivalence.
To sum up this section, our literature review provides insights into the interesting
and significant communication effects of the use of taboo messages or images in ads.
We believe that this is an important concept, in theory and in practice, which deserves
to be investigated.

4. Method
Given the relative paucity of relevant research into the evocation of taboos in
advertisements, the study reported here was primarily qualitative in nature, with
the main aim of uncovering people’s views and experiences with respect to an
inherently sensitive subject. Because our goal was to develop a better understanding
of individual reactions to taboo advertisements, we used the relevant
interdisciplinary literature as a starting point. In parallel with a critical review of
its content, we expected depth interviewing to supplement and extend existing
research, in the spirit of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Data were
generated by in-depth qualitative interviews with interviews conducted in Morocco
and in France. The choice of these two distinct cultural contexts was made in order
to be able to generalize the results independently of the research setting and the
type of taboo considered.
 EJM 4.1 Sampling procedure
46,1/2 A total of 22 in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with ten individuals in
Morocco and 12 in France. The rationale for the total sample size of 22 is
methodologically defensible. There are two generic approaches to the determination of
sample sizes for qualitative data collection by in-depth interviewing: to fix a number of
successfully completed interviews before the study begins, or to allow the progress of
220 the enquiry to decide the number. Discussing the first of these, Griffin and Hauser
(1993) suggest that between 90 and 100 per cent of the required data will normally have
been collected in the course of between 20 and 30 successful interviews. Their criterion
has the merit of setting a clear and simple standard. However, Glaser and Strauss
(1967) applied the principle, in their “grounded theory” approach to qualitative enquiry,
that sample size should be determined by the “criterion of theoretical sufficiency” (as
distinct from “statistical sufficiency”), which dictates that interviewing stops as soon
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as the conduct of one more interview will not add anything new or significant to the
theoretical elements already identified. Both of these precedents were taken into
account in setting the sample size for this study. A lower threshold of 20 interviews
was set in principle, and it was judged in practice that theoretical saturation had been
reached after the twenty-second. The eventual age range was from 20 to 57, and the
gender balance was 60 per cent male to 40 per cent female. A full profile of the
participants is shown in Table I. The French participants are slightly older than the
Moroccan interviewees which reflect the countries’ respective demographic profiles:
the median age in Morocco is 24 years compared to the French median age of 39 years

Location Participant number Gender Age Employment

Morocco 1 M 25 Bank employee

2 F 22 Student
3 M 31 Salesperson
4 M 42 Head waiter
5 M 41 Kitchen worker
6 F 22 Student
7 M 27 IT executive
8 F 40 Office worker
9 F 24 Student
10 M 35 Teacher
France 1 F 39 University lecturer
2 F 37 Doctor
3 F 30 IT executive
4 M 33 Lawyer
5 M 20 Student
6 F 21 Student
7 M 57 Nurse
8 F 28 Executive
9 M 41 Accountant
10 M 40 Office worker
11 M 28 Teacher
12 M 24 Manual worker
Table I.
Profile of the participants Note: M ¼ male; F ¼ female
 (World Factbook, 2008). Further, compared to the French participants, Moroccan “Taboo” themes
interviewees have a slightly more lower-to-middle class tinge, which reflect a social in advertising
difference in the national demographic profiles, lower and middle-class respondents
collectively accounting for 87 per cent of the total (Agueniou, 2009) compared to a rate
of 81 per cent in France (Chauvel, 2004).
A three-step recruitment process have been used to select interviewees. First, key
informants – our own friends, relatives and colleagues – were asked to introduce us to 221
people who might be willing to take part. Second, we made contact with nominated
potential participants, and explained clearly to them for whom the research was being
conducted, and what it hoped to achieve. Third, agreement to be interviewed was
secured, and interviews were arranged at the participants’ convenience.
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4.2 Interview protocol

A semi-structured-interview format was used to elicit perceptions. The interviews were
also open-ended. The semi-structured interviews were based on an interview guide,
accompanied by examples of taboo advertisements, fixing the focus on the main topics
to be explored and setting the direction the questioning was to follow. In the tradition
of qualitative research, the guide was not followed rigidly, and was revised as patterns
emerged (Patton, 1990). The Moroccan interviews were conducted either in the local
Arabic or in French, Morocco being a member of “la Francophonie”, the collective
designation of the countries of the world in which French is a widely spoken second
language. We have to stress the point that all Moroccan interviewees were born in
Morocco and they have never visited France. To limit the ethnicity-of-interviewer
effect, as the interviewer has Moroccan ethnic heritage, we sought to make participants
feel more relaxed and confident by allowing them to select their own times and venues.
All interviews took place in a recreation or home environment. In introducing the
interviews, we stressed that the enquiry was part of a research program, and that no
judgement would be passed on what was said during an interview. Participants were
assured of confidentiality.
The five key topics in the interview guide represented an expansion of the first
research question, which asks how individual perceive taboo advertising in general
and how they respond to brands advertised in that way. They were:
.
attitudes to the taboo ads and emotions evoked by them;
.
attitudes to the brand;
.
purchase intention;
.
evaluation of the product promoted the taboo ad; and
.
image of a consumer who might buy it.

The interviews lasted about an hour, on average, and were recorded and then
transcribed. The transcripts were content-analysed in a two-stage approach procedure
advocated by Miles and Huberman (1994). Within-case analysis was first undertaken,
to focus on each respondent individually. Cross-case analysis followed, integrating
findings both among participants in Morocco and France and across the two countries.
The relevance of a given theme was derived from the frequency of mentions. The
outcome of this analysis is shown in Table II (Morocco) and Table III (France).
 EJM
Category Sub-category Participants Verbatim comments
46,1/2
Normative Violation of [M1], [M3], [M4], [M5], Violation of conversational norms:
dimension of behavioural and [M6], [M10] “We don’t talk about sex at home.
the taboo conversational Sometimes among friends, but that’s
norms it!”
222 “It’s a topic you don’t broach, even less
so in advertising”
Violation of behavioural norms:
“It’s unacceptable to see two people on
a bed . . . naked. It’s against our
religion”
“This is the kind of ad that appears all
the time. Nobody has the right to
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display people’s sexual behaviour this

way. It’s immodest – shameful, even”
Role of subjective [M1], [M3], [M5], [M6] “Buying this product is going to be
norms banned, because it’s a bad product . . .
it uses sex to sell, and that’s bad”
“Really, this kind of ad has a negative
effect on the product, especially if
we’re talking about consumers,
customers who use this kind of
cosmetic products”
Role of social [M1], [M2], [M3], [M4], “I couldn’t look at this with my
environment [M5], [M6], [M7], [M8], parents. Alone, yes . . . ”
[M10] “ I couldn’t look at this advertising in
front of my parents”
Zapping behaviour [M3], [M6], [M7], [M8], “When you’re with your family and
[M9] you see this kind of ad, you
automatically change the channel to
avoid it, or behave as if nothing had
happened and pretend not to notice the
ad”
“If you see things like this in a TV ad,
then you leave the room . . . or maybe
you change channel”

Contagion Contagiousness [M1], [M3], [M4], [M5], “It’s just that when there are really
dimension of [M6] shocking things . . . you remember
the taboo them whenever you buy the product”
“The problem’s the advertising. I
wouldn’t want anyone to say I buy this
perfume because of the advertising”

Ambivalence Ambivalence [M1], [M3], [M5], [M10] “In your heart of hearts, you’d like to
dimension of look at this kind of advertising. But, in
the taboo company, you can’t”
“You have to be on your own. You’d
Table II. like to look at this but, with the family
Communication effects of there, you have to seem to be
taboo ads in the reluctant”
Moroccan context (continued)
 Category Sub-category Participants Verbatim comments
“Taboo” themes
in advertising
“Self-construal” [M1], [M3], [M7], [M10] “Between ourselves, this sort of
advertising doesn’t bother me when
I’m abroad. But when I’m in Morocco, I
think of my family, of the people who
taught me, and I can’t look at 223
something shocking like this. I know,
I’m complicated”
Role of product [M1], [M3], [M4], [M5], “The ad doesn’t go with the product at
congruence [M6], [M7], [M8], [M9] all”
“There’s a link between this ad and
this product”
Individual Religiosity [M1], [M2], [M3], [M5], “I’m a Muslim first and foremost”
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factors [M7] “Over here, mindsets and religion

come into it. We’re Muslims. We’ve
been brought up that way”
“Erotophobia” [M5], [M6], [M9] “I don’t like daring images, myself”
“I can’t look at images like that, with
people in those positions!”
Conformity [M1], [M3], [M4], [M5] “That sort of advertising isn’t part of
our tradition”
“You have to follow the groundswell,
and always show respect for religion”
Notes: M1 to M10 ¼ sequential codes for individual participants in Morocco; M should not be taken to
signify “male” Table II.

4.3 Advertising stimuli

In both qualitative studies, the stimuli to which participants reacted were magazine
advertisements for mainstream international brands, in which the visual images
unquestionably challenged one particular taboo: explicit sexual imagery.
The two pairs of advertisements chosen were deliberately different in the nature of
the visual imagery. In Morocco, participants were confronted by photographic images
of a man and a woman in the indisputably sexual encounters. The taboo nature of such
representations in Islamic societies requires no further comment, but it is noteworthy
that sexual imagery features as an appeal in more and more advertising in Morocco,
whether from abroad, home-grown or originating from elsewhere in North Africa. That
creative tactic can be expected to be widely regarded as unacceptable, because
sexuality is a significant taboo in Muslim countries (Bouhdiba, 2001). Not only is
extra-marital sexual behaviour proscribed, but seductive representation of the female
body is a definite taboo (Couchard, 1994).
In present-day Morocco, a significant proportion of the population is potentially
exposed to advertisements with sexual connotations that may be considered taboo.
Though television advertising in Morocco is regulated by the High Authority of
Audiovisual Communication, nearly 10 per cent of Moroccan households watch French
television on a daily basis, and are consequently exposed to commercials evoking
sexual taboos (Gaoui, 2009). Meanwhile, the number of available satellite channels is
increasing, the penetration of one reaching 53 per cent in 2008 (Al-Bayane, 2008). Print
 EJM
Category Sub-category Participants Verbatim comments
46,1/2
Normative Violation of [F1], [F2], [F3], [F4], [F5], Violation of conversational norms:
dimension of behavioural and [F6], [F7], [F8], [F10], “There are things that are more
taboo conversational [F12] intimate, all the same, that you don’t
norms talk about a lot. This ad is about
224 something personal, that should be
dealt with in a more modest way”
“This is a completely taboo subject.
You don’t talk about it because it isn’t
supposed to exist”
Violation of behavioural norms:
“This plays with taboos, breaks the
rules. It reflects norms, yes, but of the
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voyeuristic kind”
“The ads portray deviant behaviour”
Role of subjective No French participants
norms
Role of social [F1], [F2,], [F3], [F4], “I couldn’t look at this ad with my
environment [F5], [F7], [F8], [F9], parents”
[F12] “This advertising is embarrassing, in
front of the children”
Zapping behaviour [F3], [F4], [F6], [F12] “If I saw this on my own, I’d say
‘Listen, it isn’t at all wicked to have
used that picture’. It reminds you of
the feminine anatomy, and the
lighting’s excellent. In a family setting,
it depends on who’s next to me. If it’s
children, I wouldn’t let them see this
picture. If it was my parents, I’d flick
the page. If it was someone more open-
minded, well then, we could discuss it”

Contagion Contagiousness [F1], [F2], [F3], [F8,], “I hold it against this brand for being
dimension of [F10], [F12] presented this way . . . I can’t see
taboo myself in a brand that parades
pornography before everybody’s eyes”
“When you purchase a product, you
have certain requirements. This
product should have been able to
please me, but now I’ll associate it with
an image of women that I don’t like at
all”

Ambivalence Ambivalence [F5], [F7], [F10], [F12] “I’m not sure . . . you want to look at
dimension of the ad, but you know that isn’t quite
taboo proper”
“Self-construal” No French participants
Role of product [F3], [F4], [F7], [F12] “I can see no connection between the
Table III. congruence product and the image”
Communication effects of “This ad has nothing to do with the
taboo ads in the French product; that’s unacceptable”
context (continued)
 Category Sub-category Participants Verbatim comments
“Taboo” themes
in advertising
Personal Religiosity No French participants
factors “Erotophobia” [F1], [F8,], [F11], [F12] “Seeing sexual images everywhere, I
don’t approve”
“I’d sooner see images of death than all
this sex” 225
Conformity No French participants
Notes: F1 to F12 ¼ sequential codes for individual participants in France; F should not be taken to
signify “female” Table III.

and outdoor advertising escape the scrutiny of the regulatory authority (Belous, 2007),
and can therefore have more creative freedom to disseminate words and images with
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sexual connotations. A case in point is a controversial poster campaign for the General
Motors brand Opel, in which a sexually charged visual was accompanied by the
slogan, “Prices are decreasing; desire is increasing” (Belous, 2007).
The decision to conduct a new qualitative study in France was based on two
considerations. First, in France as in all western countries, the AIDS crisis of the
mid-eighties encouraged the development of advertising strategies for “social
marketing” campaigns that were based on provocative and taboo appeals (Wilson and
West, 1995). Their deployment in creative platforms has since become well-established
practice in mainstream advertising in France. Second, it would be interesting and
potentially useful to check for transferability of the results between two distinctly
different cultural contexts. In the French qualitative study, participants reacted to the
images of bondage and female masturbation. The fundamental contrast with the
sexual imagery in the Moroccan advertisements was based on the known tolerance to
sexual advertising themes in France, and Europe more generally (Herbig, 1998), a fact
suggesting that the sexual taboos in the Moroccan advertisements would be unlikely to
be perceived as such by most French participants.
To give support to this assumption, an online questionnaire was administered in
Morocco and France to a new convenience sample comprising 30 respondents in each
country. The age range was from 18 to 51, with a mean of 27. Key informants – our
own friends, relatives and colleagues – were asked to introduce us to people who might
be willing to take part to an online survey and who have not already participated to the
qualitative study. All the respondents were aware of the objective for the survey.
Those recruited received an e-mail invitation to visit a website. Once connected,
subjects were exposed randomly and successively to two advertisements. Moroccan
respondents were shown the two ads depicting female masturbation and bondage, and
French respondents saw depictions of a man and a woman in indisputably sexual
encounters. After exposure to each advertisement, respondents were instructed to
answer questions about its perceived tabooness by responding, on a five-point Likert
scale anchored by “very strongly agree” and “very strongly disagree”, to statements
previously developed by Sabri-Zaaraoui (2007). Examples are “In my opinion, the
behaviour suggested in this advertisement is socially acceptable” and “It is difficult for
me to speak about the topic suggested in this advertisement”. The results show that
respondents in Morocco rated the advertisements highly taboo (mean ¼ 4.1; standard
 EJM deviation ¼ 0.6) whereas those in France did not consider them to be taboo at all
46,1/2 (mean ¼ 2.2; standard deviation ¼ 0.9).

5. Results
The conclusions to be drawn from the qualitative studies in the Moroccan and French
cultural contexts are general rather than specific, because the pattern of results was not
226 different in terms of processes triggered by exposure to taboo ads: normative pressure,
contagious effect, and emotional ambivalent reactions. Nevertheless, contrasts are
remarked upon only when they are judged to be important and relevant. Drawing on
both the relevant literature and the verbatim comments collected in the qualitative
study, we first discuss the concomitant influences of contagion, normative pressure
and ambivalence in an advertising campaign on consumer perceptions of taboo. Next,
the influence of individual differences on reactions to taboo ads is reviewed. Finally, a
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conceptual framework for the understanding of the communication effects of

taboo-exploiting advertising is proposed.
Verbatim extracts from participants’ comments are included both in the text of this
section and in Tables II and III. There is little overlap: the intention is to present as
many examples as possible of the responses on which the theoretical conclusions have
been based, within the constraints imposed by an acceptable word-count.

5.1 Influence of taboo characteristics: normative dimension

According to the literature, a taboo is an internalised prohibition. As Table II shows,
responses in both Morocco and France underlined that conceptualisation. In the
Moroccan context, the violated taboo was considered in religious terms (“It’s
unacceptable to see two people on a bed . . . naked. It’s against our religion”: M6)
whereas participants in France explained that the taboo ads transgressed some moral
and personal norm (“It’s immoral and unethical . . . Personally, I can’t accept it”: F9).
There was convergence, however, in that the majority stressed the point that taboo ads
transgress two kinds of norm: conversational and behavioural norms. A taboo was
either something they felt unable to speak about freely (“There are subjects that are
socially taboo, and we don’t talk about them”: F6) or something they would not
personally do (“The ads depict deviant behaviour”: F6, M3, M4).
Moreover, exposure to taboos in advertising had two main consequences: a
challenge to personal morals, in the abstract, and the concrete act of channel switching,
or “zapping” behaviour. On the one hand, taboo ads were thought to violate personal
norms and standards, with the result that half of the participants had felt such moral
emotions as guilt, shame and embarrassment, and exercised “internal sanctions”, as
predicted by Heywood (2002). These moral reactions were more intense in Morocco
than in France, presumably because French audiences are more used to provocative
and taboo appeals, and less likely to be shocked by them (“Everything that’s forbidden
crops up in our daily life, after all. You get the impression of being always on the verge
of the unacceptable”: F6). Nevertheless, the intensity of the emotions engendered by the
advertisements was moderated by the perceived congruence between the promoted
product and the sexual message appeal. When there is a perceived incongruity, the
negative emotions are stronger (“The product has nothing to do with the ad; that’s
unacceptable”: F12). A practical consequence of such negative felt emotions, and the
social context, was that nine participants (talking about similar TV commercials rather
 than the advertisements they had been shown), were predisposed to zap the offending “Taboo” themes
ad (“When you’re with your family and you see this kind of ad, you automatically in advertising
change the channel to avoid it, or behave as if nothing had happened and pretend not to
notice the ad”: M9).
Lastly, the internalised prohibition that is the response to violation of a perceived
taboo triggers a normative social pressure that is felt, first, while looking at the
advertisement in question and, second, when deciding whether or not to buy the 227
product it promotes.
Discussing the advertisements, 18 of the 22 participants stressed the role of the
domestic ambience (absence or presence of family, friends or children) in moderating
the strength and valence of their emotional reactions and their attitude towards the
ads. Some participants, extending their thoughts beyond the stimuli presented to them,
and noting that parents are seen as the guarantors of respect for norms, said they were
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embarrassed about watching taboo-challenging television advertising in their presence

(“I feel ashamed and ill-at-ease when I view this kind of image with my parents”: M2).
Alone or with friends, the discomfort diminished, and their negative reactions were less
intense, or even non-existent. These results are consistent with the findings of Baldwin
and Holmes (1987), in that family or friends are treated as a private audience, internally
represented. The participants react in ways that would be acceptable to their salient
private audience.
The effect of normative social pressure triggered by taboo ads on purchase intention
is consistent with the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980). In our
study, four Moroccan males more or less explicitly stressed the role of subjective norms
as a negative influence on their purchase intention: (“We won’t be allowed to buy the
product”); (“If the advertisers go on doing this kind of advertising, people will reject
it”). This effect was less noticeable in France, presumably because of the religious basis
for sexual taboos in the Moroccan culture. These findings should be treated with
caution, however, because the advertising shown to Moroccan participants had
originally been targeted at women.

5.2 Influence of taboo characteristics: contagion dimension

The literature underlines the contagious nature of taboos. Influenced by the theory of
“the structure and movement of the cultural meaning of consumer goods” (McCracken,
1986), our analysis of the interviews reveals a transfer of the negative attributes of the
taboo to the product (“Really, this kind of ad has a negative effect on the product,
especially if we’re talking about consumers, customers who use this kind of cosmetic
products”: M1); (“I will definitely associate the brand with pornography, not because of
the product but because of the images”: F3) and to the person who chooses it (“Let’s
say, if I decide to buy this product, I’m afraid of being labelled as the sort of person that
we see in this visual. I don’t want to be seen as a pervert”: F8). Thus, participants
feared being associated with the negative attributes of the taboo, and that limited their
purchase intentions.

5.3 Influence of taboo characteristics: ambivalence dimension

Our study distinguished participants who had negative emotional reactions to a
taboo-challenging advertisement, as either “ambivalent” or “univalent” in their
 EJM responses to it. Figure 1 shows the causal paths from ambivalence or univalence to
46,1/2 positive or negative attitudes to the advertising.
The literature proposes that ambivalent individuals will experience mixed feelings,
either simultaneously or in sequence. For instance, they may feel positive pleasure,
arousal and attraction at the same time as, or followed by, negative embarrassment,
shame, offence or frustration. In our study, exposure to the taboo imagery triggered
228 conflicting emotional responses in some participants, who were typically transferring
their opinions to television advertising of this kind that they had already noticed
(“Deeper inside, we want to watch this kind of ads, but when we’re in a group, we
can’t”: M1). Their ambivalence was either positive or negative. The three “positive
ambivalents” identified experienced more positive emotional reactions than negative,
and their eventual attitudes to the advertising were positive. In the case of the five
“negative ambivalents”, negative reactions dominated, and the attitude was negative.
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All ambivalent participants were men, who tended to express the positive emotions
evoked by the ads more freely than their female counterparts. In the course of the
study, it also became apparent that the ambivalent individuals were among the
younger participants.

Figure 1.
“Univalent/ambivalent”
typology
 In the Moroccan context, sex appeals seemed to activate two conflicting concepts of self “Taboo” themes
among ambivalent interviewees, which researchers have defined as independent and in advertising
interdependent “self-construal” (Markus and Kitayama, 1991; Singelis, 1994; Zhang,
2009). The independent type is made meaningful primarily by reference to the feelings
experienced in response to a stimulus, such as excitement and pleasure. The
interdependent self-construal process regulates such reactions by reference to salient
social and group norms (“This ad is very exciting, very exciting . . . No, no I can’t say 229
such a thing. This ad is bad. I can’t tolerate this kind of ads in my country. Muslim
countries are not going to accept it”: M3).
Univalent individuals might or might not perceive the content of an advertisement
as taboo. Twelve participants did, and expressed only negative emotional reactions to
the taboo-evoking images they saw. Though Figure 1 includes the theoretical
possibility that univalence might manifest itself as a wholly positive emotional
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reaction to the same stimulus, we found no such phenomenon in our study. When
univalent individuals do not perceive a taboo element in the advertising, it follows that
any emotional reaction is unrelated to the issue of taboo-violation, and is therefore
irrelevant in the context of our study.

5.4 Influence of personal characteristics: religious affiliation and religiosity

In the Moroccan study, participants who considered the advertising to violate a taboo
often invoked their religious affiliation and religiosity as an explanation (“I am Muslim
first and foremost”: M1); (“This is forbidden by religion”: M10). This influence on the
perception of taboo in advertising proved to be insignificant in the French context.

5.5 Influence of personal characteristics: erotophobia

The self-explanatory term “erotophobia” (Helweg-Larsen and Howell, 2000) describes a
mindset that predisposes individuals to be especially reluctant to confront the
exploitation of sexual matters and taboos in advertising. In our study, some
participants felt discomfort and dismay in the face of the taboo-violating material
(“I’d sooner see images of death than all this sex”: F11). The attitude to the ad was thus
wholly negative, leading to rejection of its content and condemnation of the advertiser
responsible (“I’m shocked because they use sex to promote a product. It makes me hate
the ad and the brand.”: F17).

5.6 Influence of personal characteristics: conformity

An individual’s tendency to conform with social and cultural norms and rules is an
intuitively logical explanation for negative perceptions of the evocation of taboos in
advertising. The influencing role of conformity was more noticeable in Morocco, where
the weight of rules and traditions is important (“I can’t accept this kind of advertising
because it doesn’t fit into our culture and tradition. We must always respect the
tradition”: M4).

5.7 Influence of personal characteristics: age

Lastly, an individual’s age is known to have a direct effect on response to advertising
of any kind, with younger members of an audience being more receptive to “edgy”
advertising appeals. In our study, the younger participants judged as “cool” and
creative what their older counterparts found shocking and aggressive. In particular,
 EJM parents in the sample deplored the widespread use of sexual imagery in advertising on
46,1/2 the grounds that it could shock their children (“I do not want that this kind of ad to be
seen by my child. I find it completely inappropriate”: F12).

6. Discussion
By integrating the findings of an interdisciplinary literature review with the results of
230 qualitative studies in two different cultural contexts, our study has yielded formative
insights into the antecedents of the perceived “tabooness” of a certain kind of
advertising and its consequent communication effects. We have built those conceptual
elements into the framework of theoretically relevant constructs shown in Figure 2,
linking the antecedents of taboo-challenging advertisements to their consequences,
which are the product of personal, interpersonal and situational variables. The findings
of the two qualitative studies form the basis for four main conclusions relating to those
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variables and the interplay among them.

First of those is that the key factors likely to influence the perceived tabooness of an
advertisement are personal. Analysis of our interview data showed that a respondent’s
age had a significant impact on his or her evaluation of the extent of taboo violation,
supporting the findings of De Pelsmacker and Van Den Bergh (1996), Manceau and
Tissier-Desbordes (2006) and Vézina and Paul (1997). It also revealed – especially, in
the case of the interviews in Morocco – the importance of religiosity to participants as
they evaluated the advertisements they were shown and advertising in general. The
level of tabooness perceived was higher for the more strongly religious among them.
According to Mokhlis (2006), this finding is easily explained by the fact that a religion
itself imposes taboos and obligations that individuals who follow it have to observe
and conform to. This result is consistent with the findings established by Fam et al.

Figure 2.
Proposed conceptual
framework
 (2004), who demonstrated that religiously devout consumers were more likely to find “Taboo” themes
advertising of sex related products more offensive than less devout consumers. In the in advertising
same way, Al-Olayan and Karande (2000) showed that advertising must be compliant
with the religious tenets in Arab countries in order to be accepted. Consequently,
advertisements in those countries will tend to portray women in advertisements only
when their presence is related to the advertised product.
However, we found only two previous studies relevant to erotophobia (Alden and 231
Crowley, 1995; Helweg-Larsen and Howell, 2000) and none to conformity, both of which
our study suggests are important antecedents of perceived tabooness.
These conclusions, though necessarily tentative, could guide the creative strategy of
advertisers addressing audiences believed to contain a significant proportion of
individuals receptive to the challenging of taboos. Our findings suggest that it would
be productive to target people who are not particularly religious, not prone to
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conformism and not at all erotophobic. Future academic and commercial research will
need, however, to validate these interrelationships between advertisers and audiences
in quantitative studies of more representative samples.
Second, a key variable in our model is an individual’s emotional ambivalence, or
positive or negative univalence. The level of taboo perceived by the participants in the
advertisements to which they were exposed evoked affective responses that could be
characterised as indicative of one or other of these mental traits. Ambivalent reactions
towards advertising stimuli have been an increasingly prevalent topic in the literature:
for example, Williams and Aaker (2002) and Janssens et al. (2007). The former study
showed that advertising appeals can highlight conflicting emotions, both positive and
negative, and those appeals lead to a more negative attitude for individuals with a lower
propensity to accept duality compared to those with a higher propensity. As the negative
univalent participants identified in the present study, individuals with a lower
propensity to accept duality experience discomfort when exposed to ambivalent stimuli.
These reactions were subject to moderation by two intervening variables: gender,
and the internal conflict between the social and private self. Here again, this finding
invites strategic creative planning that segments the audience and targets subsets who
are likely to react favourably to advertisements that evoke taboos. In effect, our study
has shown that the audience response to such advertising is not homogeneous. Rather,
we distinguish a continuum between two extreme cases: positive and negative
“univalents”, who are respectively the groups most receptive and least receptive to
taboo appeals. Further research is required to build up a more detailed profile of these
two audience segments.
Third, the exploitation of taboo in advertising exhibits a “contagion” effect, in the
form of a sensual transfer of the negative characteristics of a visual treatment to the
advertised product and to its eventual user. This result is consistent with the work on
emotional contagion by Howard and Gengler (2001) showing that positive or negative
emotion experienced towards a stimulus can be transferred to product attitudes, and
eventually to its purchase. More precisely, the authors established that exposing
receivers to happy senders they liked, receivers may experience happiness via
contagion, resulting in receivers having a positive attitudinal bias towards a product.
Consequently, this potential contagion effect may engender in advertising planners a
wariness of creative tactics that might set up negative reference groups in the minds of
potential buyers and consumers of the product.
 EJM Finally, the literature contends that the role of normative social influences is most
46,1/2 significant at two sequential stages in the process of persuasion: during viewing of the
advertising and while the intention to purchase is developing. This underlines the
importance of the social setting within which an advertisement is seen and evaluated,
consistent with previous research highlighting the influences of social context on
advertising reception (Puntoni and Tavasoli, 2005). Our results can thus guide advertising
232 strategists in their inter-media choices. We found that television commercials, for
instance, were above all viewed in a family environment. This suggested a strategic risk
that they could confer special salience on the viewer’s social self, and thereby encourage
negative evaluations. Moreover, an individual’s social norms, those social values that he
or she has internalised, could exacerbate that potential to exercise negative pressure on
intention to buy. This finding contradicts the conclusions of previous studies of
provocative advertising (De Pelsmacker and Van Den Bergh, 1996; Vézina and Paul,
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1997), which found that the form of provocation that depended on the violation of taboos
had a definite negative effect on attitudes to the advertisement deploying it, but that the
effect was not transferred to the brand, or to the intention to use it.

7. Conclusion
In the marketing literature, discussion of taboos in communication strategy is patchy,
and there are very few empirical studies of the effects of their deployment as an
element of communication strategy. The objective of the research reported here was
thus to achieve a better understanding of the affective, cognitive responses of
advertising audiences to creative tactics that challenge taboos. Our first step was
conceptual: having undertaken a multidisciplinary investigation of the topic, we were
able to define formally both the core construct and its component dimensions. In the
process, our attention was focused on areas for investigation absent from the relevant
marketing literature. The resulting theoretical framework led us to the formulation of
research propositions relating to the processes involved in the implementation of an
advertising campaign built around a creative strategy of challenging taboos.
If our findings are to make a viable contribution to researchers’ and practitioners’
understanding of such a communication strategy, three limitations of the study must be
acknowledged. First, the quantitative analysis of questionnaire responses would have
been more robust if the data had been gathered from a larger and demonstrably
representative sample of respondents. Future studies can remedy this comparative
defect. Moreover, the substitution of a quantitative survey using online questionnaires,
for instance, could be a means of controlling the ethnicity-of-interviewer effect which
may have introduced unquantifiable bias to the present inquiry. In addition, a
quantitative study could help to validate or invalidate the role and influence of normative
pressure on purchase intentions and behaviour. Second, the experimental stimuli are of
one kind only: challenging sexual taboos. It is worth noting that many other taboos are
evoked in advertising campaigns, among which are “drug chic”, male dominance over
supine women, and even death. Whether or not our findings can be generalised to all
types of taboo is therefore a question yet to be resolved. Third, our study was confined to
two cultural settings: France and Morocco. It would be illuminating to replicate it, and
test the results, in other world cultures. For example, scandals have erupted recently in
India surrounding advertising campaigns judged to have violated taboos (Sheth and
Engineer, 2008). It would be interesting to repeat the study with quota samples
 containing sufficient numbers of cultural, ethnic and religious sub-groups in each “Taboo” themes
country, and questionnaires designed to elicit responses that would permit comparison in advertising
of perceptions of taboo topics and advertisements across those sub-groups. A gap in the
literature and the research could thereby be filled.

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Corresponding author
Ouidade Sabri can be contacted at: ouidade.sabri@yahoo.fr

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