亞馬遜納粹形象廣告引爭議

亞馬遜納粹形象廣告引爭議

反響極差的宣傳舉措對營銷人員和雜志設(shè)計(jì)者來說是個很大的教訓(xùn)。不過它們也反映了電視產(chǎn)業(yè)激烈的眼球爭奪戰(zhàn)：在線流媒體企業(yè)和傳統(tǒng)電視臺都在尋找風(fēng)險更高的節(jié)目創(chuàng)意，并更激進(jìn)地推銷這些節(jié)目。

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

Guardian 《衛(wèi)報》

imagery 意象

distinctive 獨(dú)特的

inbuilt 嵌入的

featured 精選的

guerrilla 游擊隊(duì)

Amazon's Nazi-style advertising gimmick backfires in New York（580words）

By Henry Mance in London and Shannon Bond in New York

It must have seemed like a good idea to somebody.

Amazon has come under fire after plastering Nazi-type imagery over a subway train in New York.

It was the second mis-step in the marketing for The Man in the High Castle,Amazon's big budget drama,which imagines the world if the Axis powers had won the second world war.

A fortnight ago,The Guardian newspaper in the UK had to pulp 300,000 of copies of its listings magazine,The Guide,after senior editors realised too late that a cover image about the show,headlined “The Reich Stuff”,could be offensive.

The badly received publicity moves are a lesson to marketers and magazine designers. But they also illustrate the intense battle for audience eyeballs in the television industry: with streaming companies and traditional broadcasters looking for riskier programming ideas and marketing them more aggressively.

“You have to do more,and be more distinctive,to stand out,” says Dan Brooke,marketing director at Channel 4.In the US,streaming service Hulu has pledged to boost spending by 70 per cent this year to promote its own original shows,such as The Mindy Project.

Amazon and Netflix,which are seeking to define their creative ambition,start at a disadvantage because they do not have traditional TV channels. By contrast,the BBC does little promotion for its programming in the UK,relying instead on cross-promotion from its various outlets,which include the country's most popular TV channel,radio station and news website.

“A good old,linear schedule” allows broadcasters to rely on a certain inbuilt audience,says Tim Westcott,an analyst at IHS. Unlike Netflix,Amazon at least has a retail website,where A Man in the High Castle has been extensively featured,he adds.

Even those companies with existing TV channels are having to work harder to establish their reputation for drama. UK pay-TV broadcaster Sky promoted Fortitude,a £25m Arctic thriller that was its most expensive drama to date,by placing an 8ft model of a polar bear at various London landmarks.

Channel 4's Humans,a drama about artificial intelligence,was preceded by an extended hoax,including an eBay page and a store in Regent Street,London,that both purported to sell robots.

“Fifteen years ago people would just turn up[to watch shows],” says Mr Brooke. “Now you have to go out and reach them more.”

But the shift to more innovative marketing,which cannot be turned off like a TV or YouTube advert,requires a particular duty of care,says Tim Duffy,UK chair of M & C Saatchi,the advertising agency. “There was a duty on[Amazon]to make clear the premise” of the Nazi imagery.

Poor marketing decisions are not unique to the streaming era. In 2007,a would-be guerrilla advertising campaign for a movie based on Cartoon Network's animated series Aqua Teen Hunger Force sparked a terror scare in Boston. LED panels bearing the likeness of two characters were mistakenly identified as bombs,leading to a citywide security response.

The head of Cartoon Network resigned over the incident,and Turner,the channel's parent company,agreed to pay the Boston police and the US Department of Homeland Security $2m to pay for the costs of the incident.

Amazon is removing its campaign from the New York subway,but the publicity is unlikely to have been entirely unwelcome. Next year it launches Jeremy Clarkson's new motoring show; the boundaries of taste may soon be pushed again.