Introduction Over the past decades, the use of controversial advertisements has been embedded into general marketing practices. The deliberate use of shocking or offensive imagery has aimed to attract the attention of consumers and increase their curiosity about the brand or a product that is being advertised. The initial controversial advertising campaign is attributed to the United Colours of Benetton that pioneered provocative messages in their marketing. For instance, the brand released unrelated images depicting a black woman breastfeeding a white baby or a priest dressed in black, kissing a nun in white. The main objective of such photos was to raise awareness of the public about the diversity of colors, ethnicities, and cultures (Falk, 1997). Empirical research has shown that controversial advertisements positively contribute to increasing the audience’s attention as their recall of the messages that are being transferred. Those campaigns that have been designed to provoke and shock usually result in the overall increased awareness, above and beyond information-based content. Nevertheless, it is necessary to discover whether consumers have a positive or negative attitude toward controversial ads. While it is expected that slightly provocative content is better received than extremely provocative, it remains unclear whether there would be a positive impact on being attracted to the brand and wanting to purchase its product. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to study controversial advertisement outcomes within the ‘culture of affect’ through the case study approach. Literature Review The intention behind a controversial advertisement is to gain the attention of potential consumers, raise awareness of a brand or a product, and increase sales. Scholars have widely investigated the phenomenon of controversial ads due to their polarising nature as well as the capacity not only to shock but to bring attention to critical social issues. For instance, the campaigns by Benetton acquired great recognition for heightening public awareness of social problems but also have resulted in consumer campaigns and public outrage (Arnaud, Curtis and Waguespack, 2018). Calvin Klein campaigns, which allegedly included child images of pornographic nature, elicited boycotts and protests from the public. Nevertheless, despite the fact that controversial ads can lead to adverse outcomes for brands, companies still use the strategy in the hopes to stand out against the media clutter and gain some attention, including the negative one (Erdogan, 2008). Such a perspective on the controversial advertisement has led to the increasing body of research on the overall influence of the approach as well as its effectiveness in the context of modern culture. For example, Fam and Waller (2003) explored the influence of controversial products versus controversial advertising execution. The scholars determined six main reasons why consumers perceived marketing messages to be offensive. Such reasons included racist imagery, nudity, sexist undertones, the subject being too personal, indecent language, and anti-social behavior (Fam and Waller, 2003). Thus, there may be no dominant reason for advertisements being perceived as offensive as every consumer would have a different perspective on