Including a conflict situation in an ad helps sell a product or an idea. This advertising technique relies on the audience's interest in seeing the conflict resolved. If you think about how children are intrigued by fights in the schoolyard, then you understand how conflict in advertising draws our attention to a product. Conflict in advertising can sometimes lead to shock advertising if scandalous or controversial, which goes one step further in creating a media-hype and drawing attention to the product or brand. 

An ad as simple as this one for Benetton in the early 1990s includes a conflict that the audience wants to see resolved. We ask questions like: "Why are these men handcuffed together?" "Who has the key?" "Is one a police officer and the other a criminal?" Asking questions like these engages the audience with the image and eventually the product and brand. 

Related lessons

• Advertising techniques
• WT2 Q1 (Pieta)