Reverse Psychology Marketing

Essentially, the idea of Reverse Psychology Marketing is completely at odds with normal marketing. Normal marketing is all about convincing people that your product is the best. Instead, when using this tactic you take a product that is very good, or very popular and proceed to jerk the fans/customers around. You run a campaign that makes people think your product isn't that great, or confuse them about what to expect when they buy it. Apparently the idea is to lower expectations so that when the customer gets the item, they are excited because it's so much better than expected.

The method behind the madness is that word of mouth is the most powerful advertising you can have. But how do you get people talking about your product? What better way to start a conversation then acting in precisely the opposite manner from that expected of someone selling something. That starts people talking about it, then if those people talking about it run into one person who has actually used the product and they give a good glowing review. Well then, it sparks even more interest.

Taken to extremes, it can come across as a big Take That to Fan Dumb.

Types of Reverse Psychology Marketing:

Be as abusive toward your core clientele as you can. Engage in deceptive advertising—not the sleazy kind that makes them think your product is great when it isn't, but rather irrationally make them think your product is crappier than it is. Maybe run a Non-Indicative First Episode that makes your product look worse than it is, instead of better.
Promise an exciting new version/season and then keep delaying its release. Then announce that it's been canceled, but spread rumors that the cancellation is just a promotional gimmick.
Release rumors that a new long-awaited version/season is finally coming out, but then explain it's actually just a re-release of the old product with new packaging. Then include new content without telling anyone.
Then reveal that the new content actually isn't what you had been promising for several years, but consists of something superficial, like extra color variations allowing for shallow aesthetic changes.
Then reveal that this was all really a promotion for the new version/season that you promised in the first place.

By keeping your customers completely confused and shell-shocked with the shift between giving them their dreams and then crushing those dreams before their eyes, Stockholm Syndrome will soon set in and they will become your mindless minions, unable to resist buying whatever merchandise you set before them.

Contrast No Such Thing as Bad Publicity. Might be based on the same type of appeal as the Tsundere, only applied to marketing instead of romance. As with other Reverse Psychology ploys, it is subject to Reverse Psychology Backfire. See also Talking Pest.

Examples of Reverse Psychology Marketing include:

Advertising

Entertainment

The "Boycott Spyro..." campaign for the first game in the series, led (more like single-handedly run) by a grouchy anthropomorphic sheep. Like the probable response towards this entry, no one really cares.
Earthbound. It stinks.

Food and Drink

The depressing ad by 6 Hour Power which was basically a picture of a few bottles of the energy drink and a dry narrator voice giving a pitch that more or less amounted to "Please buy our product, please." After seeing that, if you actually bought the thing you'd be satisfied just to know there was liquid in the bottle.
Extra Polar Ice chewing gum had a series of ads where several young men claimed chewing Extra would... mutate you into a polar bear. Seriously.
...and then the people who make Stride Gum encourage people to "start chewing that second piece" because sales have plummeted and workers are breakdancing in the factory to pass the time.
- Which was followed by commercials in which representatives from the company are forcibly removing that first piece of gum (in humorous ways such as a ram head-butting a guy in the stomach out of nowhere), accompanied by the tagline, "Spit out your Stride gum and chew another piece already -- or we'll find you." Because threats of violence are sure to improve sales.
The ice cream franchise Gelazzi advertises its chocolate with the tagline "makes all other chocolate feel hopelessly inadequate", and photos depicting chocolate bunnies attempting suicide in various ways.
Jim Henson was responsible for an early example of this in his pre-Muppet Show days. He produced a series of commercials for Wilkins Coffee, featuring two characters: Wilkins, who loves the coffee, and Won'tkins, who hates it and tells the audience not to buy it.
- Which usually ends in Won'tkins getting maimed in a highly amusing fashion.
During the '90s foul brewing byproduct Marmite had an "I Hate Marmite" version of its "My Mate Marmite" adverts. (Their current "You either love it or hate it" adverts continue to admit that sane people hate the stuff).
One mayonnaise commercial features turkeys seeing a turkey's presentation and panicking over how the brand makes a better... turkey sandwich.

Furniture and Housewares

Serta mattress's "Counting Sheep" commercials, where the mattress is so comfortable the sheep (which people would normally count in order to get to sleep) urge people not to buy Serta mattresses because they are losing their jobs.
One of the earliest examples features a forlorn Maytag repair man, who never has anything to do, as Maytag equipment never breaks down.
- This series has gone on so long they seem to have got worried about the actor's age; a young apprentice repairman with a neurotic dedication to makework was introduced.
- According to Wikipedia, Jesse White played the original repairman in 1967, followed by Gordon Jump from 1989-2003. White died in 1997; Jump died in 2003. Demographics wasn't the only factor.
- The workless Maytag repair men commercials were harshly parodied in Robot Chicken, where the out-of-work repair man goes home to a screaming wife and have a huge argument.
Many of Sit 'n Sleep's ads feature the boss Larry and his "accountant Irwin", whose reaction to their various offers is invariably "You're killing me, Larry!"

Hygiene

Another early example was Mr. Whipple, the Charmin salesman, who once became infuriated whenever potential customers squeezed the Charmin to test its softness. ("PLEASE DON'T SQUEEZE THE CHARMIN!") Eventually he saw the light.

Restaurants

Inversion along the same principle: Chick-fil-A, a fast-food restaurant chain that specializes in chicken products with a side of religious right, has ads with normal cows imploring people to eat chicken, not burgers or other beef products, complete with crudely-painted signs with bad spelling (because cows are dumb and can't type/write/paint well with hooves).
- Eat Mor Chikin!
- Burger King had a Chicken Run promotion that used a similar tactic, with the movie chickens telling people driving by the farm to eat more beef to save them.
McDonald's tried this a few years ago with their "Arch Deluxe" sandwich as a way to appeal to the more mature crowd, as opposed to their long-standing "appeal to kids" philosophy. They had a huge advertising campaign showing how repulsed children were at the new sandwiches. It didn't work out so well, and other fast-food restaurants started to make fun of them in their commercials.

Sports

Callaway Golf had a series of commercials where an old-school golfer played by John Cleese implores you not to buy their golf balls because they make the game of golf too easy.

Technology

The internet provider Comcast runs a series of commercials based on the Slowskys, a couple of turtles who are disgruntled by Comcast's speed. They end with the tagline, "Fast: It's Not For Everyone."

Anime and Manga

Haruhi Suzumiya is a case of this. The first episode of the first season had an opening with poor camera focus, an off key opening song, incomprehensible plot, terrible special effects, and all sorts of flagrant errors in production. Consider that this is an anime, which means all the bad elements had to be deliberately created. Oh, and also, the rest of the season was in Anachronic Order.
- Haruhi season 2 (or re-release of season 1 with new episodes, however you happen to classify it) was the inspiration for this trope, as essentially all of the listed steps were done. Oh, and Endless Eight with its "nice plane". Yeah.... it's becoming a tradition with Haruhi; who knows what she'll do to us next?
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth: So they ran out of money for the last two episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion, but we are told we are going to get a movie to finish the story. Then we get Death and Rebirth, which was only half of the movie... Yeah... I know Evangelion is infamous for the Mind Screw, but that was just jerking us around in order to hype the future release of End of Evangelion, which was the full movie.
- Death and Rebirth was arguably an pointed attempt not to jerk viewers around. Gainax just didn't have the movie ready, and they wanted to put out something for the fans.

Comic Books

There is a Donald Duck story about this. It ended in Donald on the run, for the Nth time.

Live-Action TV

The makers of the 2004 Battlestar Galactica were a bit like this during the last few season breaks. They also went out of their way to offend fanboys of the original BSG series, the ones who had been dreaming of new stuff for twenty years. They took Starbuck, the most masculine character in the show, and turned him into a woman. For those who did not watch the old series, this is like making Cowboy Bebop, but turning Spike a girl. After some fans dubbed the series "GINO" (Galactica In Name Only), the creators said they would address it in a coming episode. They did—by naming a character who is repeatedly raped and beaten "Gina".
- I should add: No one was more offended than Dirk Benedict, the actor who had played Starbuck. His rant, if you have not read it, is legendary... for its He-Man Woman Hater-level frothing, insane Stay in the Kitchen misogyny (guy's psychotic enough to actually say "Men hand out cigars. Women `hand out' babies." You have been warned). However, all the press from this is probably what gave the BSG execs the idea to execute this trope.

Video Games

One wonders if this trope is what Tiger Electronics had in mind when they released this gem. Of curse, given how long the game.com lasted on the market...

Web Original

Our own example is Better Than It Sounds. Admit it: You write stupid/boring summaries for your favorite shows only to advertise them to other tropers.

Real Life

Vitaly Borker, who runs an online company called "Decor My Eyes" that sells eyewear. When a customer complains that he didn't fill their order correctly, he refuses to refund their money. He even has gone as far as sending ominous and vaguely threatening emails to the complaining customer. This causes the customers to complain to industry watch groups. Because his site is mentioned on these sites his Google score goes up, thus bringing in more customers than he loses. During his interview with the New York Times, Mr. Borker openly explains that this is his deliberate strategy.