No such thing as bad publicity?

[Krass]

I created some ads over the past few months that caused a lot of harsh feedback and as we all know people love to join in on the hivemind and the ads went viral like crazy.

Even though I got tons of attention and traffic from those posts/ads I'm not too sure about how to monetise that traffic. Or even if it's worth trying to monetise.

I understand that for huge corporations they have a corporate image to uphold so if something like this happens they usually have to withdraw the post and issue a public apology.

But as a nobody in the industry I have nothing to lose PR-wise so my question is:

1. Is it a good idea to knowingly piss people off to gain traffic and attention?
2. Is it possible to capitalise profitably from this negative attention and if so, how?

Thanks guys.

 

[coredev]

 

[Samwise89]

You won't generate direct sales, I'd doubt. Maybe a tiny amount of indirect sales from the quiet people who hear the complaints and end up agreeing with your side.

Can you manage to get any other type of equity out of the bad press? Lot's of links and social signals? Can you fan the flames with some increased PPC and social advertising? You could pitch the story to some of these outrage sites as an angry consumer and try to get some bigger links.