Advertising, like music and wine falls into two categories, good and bad. Everything else is academic. So the world is a simple place. But it all goes wrong because good and bad are subjective terms that are generally incapable of universal meaning.

One person's idea of good is anthema to another individual. You are wrong of course because I know good when I see it and you clearly do not. Someone, somewhere has to apply a prescriptive definition if not of what is good then of what is acceptable.

There is a conflict in advertising between art and commerce. Art creates, commerce dictates. The relationship is often dysfunctional. People are now more ad-literate. We lead busy lives and are bombarded with information and propaganda. If you want to bypass the noise you have to be loud, clever, or controversial.

Disruptive children get attention by being louder, more boisterous and more controversial than other children. Barking dogs are hard to ignore. You might not like what they do but if getting attention is the aim, they win admirably. They break the rules of acceptable behaviour and get noticed.

The same thing happens in advertising. Breaking the rules gets you noticed. Use a word that is frowned upon. Show too much flesh. Make fun of a minority, special needs or vulnerable group. Before you know where you are, Joe Duffy's Liveline is soaking up the indignation of the plain people of Ireland and of various interest groups who grab the publicity opportunity you have created.

From the old Budget Travel bus shelter posters advising people to get their ass to the sun, to Paddy Power placing bets on old folks crossing a road or another advertiser characterising an elderly neighbour as bitter and twisted are all examples of attention seeking behaviour that has been considered beyond the pale.

Portraying young men as stupid, insensitive and useless in ad campaigns normally gets the green light from the advertising standards people. Nobody springs to their defence or suggests a link between this portrayal, the feckless attitudes of teenage dads, binge drinking-induced violence and young male suicide.

Mark Twain famously noted that free speech does not give you the right to shout “fire” in a crowded room. But how far can you go with your advertising? The shock and awe approach can give new life to a tired brand. It can help stretch a small budget. It can make up for the fact that you have nothing of substance to say. It can compensate for lack of creative genius. It can suggest that although you are part of the corporate world, you are really a fun-loving guy underneath it all.

When Ryanair ran that ad with the then transport minister Mary O'Rourke in the bath was it a stoke of genius, a hurtful lampooning of someone trying to do their job or an immature joke aimed at currying favour with a bunch of bar room jocks?

The first principal of advertising is to get noticed. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that zing. The second is to establish a positive connection with the people it wants to influence. As a brand owner you have to decide where your priorities lie.

Advertising does not just affect people's views of the brand. It affects how they think about the brand owner. So when a brand like Kenco Rappor coffee gets noticed by showing a young woman flashing her assets at two guys in a bus you must admit they are breaking the mould as they try to seduce the 18-to 25-year old target market.

Hopping from quality beans to quality boobs is a mighty leap and although the ad from JWT might not be everyone's cup of tea it says Kraft Foods are obviously a fun lot. 'Live Now, Sleep Later' may sound ballsy but it is generic and feels timid, as if the people making it were embarrassed by their own joke.

The issue is not the moral arguments relating to shock advertising. We should not care about the woman in Clontarf who has to say when she rings Joe Duffy, or how “disgusted” in Tullamore has been scandalised by Paddy Power's Last Supper poster. But where is this approach to advertising leading us?

Recent years have seen clients separate their accounts into a media module handling the big money and a creative module responsible for generating ideas and getting them into production. Much of the angst involved in the latter process lies in the fact that production costs are high. Ads have to hit the spot over an extended period of time if they are to provide a return on investment.

Everything in business today has to meet the drive for low cost and for additional profit on the bottom line. Running online viral campaigns that wouldn't pass conventional filtering is a way to boost the bottom line and engage in some exciting behaviour. But do not be fooled that these companies have suddenly discovered a sense of humour. What they have discovered is the advertising equivalent of Nike making shoes in sweat shops in third world countries.

The people who run the corporate world are a fairly unemotional group. So long as the shareholders do not get upset, they will approve and encourage anything that humps up the share price. If they find that cheaply produced ads, run for almost nothing on the web, shift pallets, do you really think your well-paid job in full service advertising is secure? Return on investment is the new organisational mantra.

It leaves little room for emotion as the slide rule of fiscal rectitude is applied to all business processes. If the low budget quick shock approach works, organisations might believe that a rap on the knuckles is a small price to pay for getting a message across effectively. People saw the controversial ads and they told their friends.

With podcasting becoming more popular it must be possible to produce ads targeting the podcast generation. Your radio broadcast might carry one set of ads and your podcast could carry another set created for the podcast listening segment of your audience. You could do things on the podcast that would get you in trouble on the radio. But sooner or later the fun police would probably spoil the party.

The Trojan Condoms 'Sex Olympics' viral would have little hope of being seen on mainstream TV but it won advertising awards having been shown on the web. The Ford Ka ads shown earlier this year at the Marketing Institute conference would have taken the animal welfare lobby's mind off fox hunting and coursing if they had run on terrestrial TV as a ginger cat is seen being decapitated. The great thing about virals is that if it all goes wrong advertisers and agencies can say it had nothing to do with them but was just some clever chappies, playing offside with the brand.

Perhaps in the final analysis shock advertising is the purest form of the art in the way that the gladiatorial games of the Roman Empire were the purest form of Gaelic football. We need a revolution now and then.

We need risqu