Delicate issues in Marketing

The Wall street journal carried an article yesterday morning titled "Hanes Panty Ads Touch on Delicate Issue" The humorous entendre in this title served to highlight what I think has been an interesting struggle for many of companies attempting to provide real world solutions to delicate issues.

Because of societal limitations imposed by our culture frank discussion of some subjects (especially in America) becomes difficult or impossible. The importance of awareness of these culture sensitivities is difficult to understate because you risk alienating customers if you accidentally offend them.

It is an interesting gap in our existing marketing paradigm that there is no creative outlet for marketing professionals to touch on these delicate subjects. It would seem that the Internet may provide a better outlet for these types of adds by offering a more selective marketing focus. For example Google Adwords might be a very effective place for Hanes to advertise especially if they used smart keywords such as "Comfortable".