When Tree by Paul McCarthy situated in the middle of Paris’s Place Vendôme was vandalised in October 2014, a musical buzz storm was created online, with web users labelling the affair “Plug gate”. Buzz created around the affair is now fuelling McCarthy’s exhibition at the city’s mint, la Monnaie de Paris. Paul McCarthy has since been named by the Observatoire des Artistes Influents as the most influential artist in the world of 2014. The cofounder of Linkfluence Guilhem Fouetillou reveals an insiders view of this phenomena.
How did Plug gate’s become a viral phenomenon?
Guilhem Fouetillou: Paul McCarthy has made the notion of ‘viral’ completely his own, something which has been used as the essence of marketing strategies for some years. It’s a question of boosting awareness of the brand and image in exploiting the maximum number of web users into expressing and sharing content on social networks. The recipe is simple, focus on people’s emotions, make them laugh, soothe them or quite simply, outrage them. ‘Lol, Cute, Trash,’ the Holy Trinity of diffusing content online. Just like Marc Jacob’s scrawny-looking mannequins from the unveiling of the latest Fall/Winter collection, McCarthy also chose to outrage his audience. The aftermath speaks for itself. His visibility explodes, results multiply by almost 100 in one month. Before, Paul McCarthy’s work was only of interest to a selective audience. The display of Tree, the inflatable sculpture resembling a giant sex toy in one of Paris’s most historical landmarks, provoked outrage immediately and forcefully among the public. News quickly reached the press including Le Figaro, BFM TV and France Inter, yet also stimulated aggression from the extreme right: Novopress, Fdesouche and Jeune Nation.
Is buzz automatically guaranteed through provocation?
Essentially, Paul McCarthy chose the right path. He identified a hot topic and made it sizzle. Last May, Conchita Wurst’s beard had already generated substantial buzz for Eurovision. Linkfluence showed the link between its media success and a still high tension in France around gender issues and sexuality. The same mechanics are in place for “Plug gate”. The American artist’s plan follows the in-vogue practice of real-time marketing, where micro or individual campaigns are triggered automatically following the consumer’s actions or certain events. But is Paul McCarthy really benefitting from this surge of ongoing commentary? One week later, “Chocolate Factory” was installed at the Monnaie de Paris, exhibiting a quirky, fully-operating chocolate factory. Although unrecognized by the public days before, the event was magnified with tens of thousands of tweets, generating spin offs around the world. As a bonus, the Father Christmas chocolates and chocolate shaped plugs retailed at €50. Provocation clearly pays off. Yet it remains to be seen if the strategy is sustainable or not; could it end up ruining his credibility given the intense debate that has been provoked?
