Every category has a behaviour it wishes didn't exist. Customers who wear clothes and return them. Fans who pocket the branded glassware. The standard response is not to get involved — for fear of upsetting anyone, or looking like you condoned it.
These four tactics did the opposite. They found the thing the brand would normally hide, sanction, or ignore — and made it the campaign. Not because the behaviour is good, but because owning it is more honest, more confident, and more interesting than pretending it isn't happening.
Here are four dumb thinking tactics from the Shift Perception Engine that turned misbehaviour into a position.
- Become the bootleg
- Give permission for what they're already doing
- Embrace the copycat with open arms
- Solve the problem you're not supposed to have
1. Become the bootleg
Don't fight the counterfeit culture around your brand — infiltrate it from the inside.
Go With The Fake — Diesel, Publicis, 2018
Diesel had a counterfeiting problem. Bootleg versions of its product were everywhere. The conventional response — legal action, anti-counterfeit messaging, brand policing — had run its course. The dumb answer: secretly open an actual knock-off store called Deisel on Canal Street in New York City, the most famous fake fashion destination in the world, far from Fifth Avenue and every other fashion hotspot where Diesel belonged. The store looked exactly like a bootleg operation. The product inside was entirely genuine. When Diesel revealed the stunt, New Yorkers formed an enormous queue. One thousand unique pieces from the collection were sold. The brand didn't just survive the counterfeit culture around it — it hijacked it.
Lululemon's Dupe Swap invited shoppers to bring in fake leggings and swap them for real ones, no questions asked. It tackled counterfeits with generosity and self-belief rather than legal pressure — and turned the exchange into a product trial campaign that generated high engagement and social sharing, 2023.not to
