Urban Outfitters continues to test the efficacy of provocation as a marketing tool, raising the ire of the Irish with a selection of St. Patrick’s Day merchandise that stereotypes the country’s natives as drinkers.

Among the items prominently displayed this week at the trendy chain’s Yonge St. store were women’s tops that read “Irish I were drinking” and “Kiss me, I’m drunk, or Irish, or whatever.”

The line also includes a trucker cap that depicts a stick figure on all fours vomiting shamrocks and reads “Irish Yoga: downward facing upchuck.”

New York congressman Joe Crowley, co-chair of the legislature’s Ad Hoc Committee on Irish Affairs, has asked Urban Outfitters CEO Tedford Marlow (who recently completed a stint as Indigo Books & Music president) to pull the merchandise.

“By selling and promoting these items, Urban Outfitters is only fueling stereotypes that many Irish-Americans, as well as the people of Ireland, work so hard to dispel,” said Crowley’s missive.

In an interview with the Star, fourth generation Irish-Canadian Eleanor McGrath, a Toronto investment adviser and former Executive Director for The Ireland Fund of Canada, wondered if the “large North American retailer feels confident in creating a line of apparel which goes beyond the usual silliness or shenanigans” because “controversy sells.”

It’s not the first time Urban Outfitters, which did not respond to the Star’s request for comment, has run afoul of an ethnic group.

In 2003, it stopped selling a Monopoly parody game called Ghettopoly after African American civic leaders complained. The following year, they discontinued a T-shirt that said Everyone Loves a Jewish Girl alongside dollar signs after objections from the Anti-Defamation League.

And just last week, the Navajo Nation, which initially accused the company of insensitivity for using their tribal name for a fall 2011 line, filed suit alleging the retailer infringed its trademark and violated the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act, which makes it illegal to suggest that products are made by American Indians when they are not.

“It’s either incompetence or insensitivity, or they’re doing it on purpose,” said Alan Middleton, a marketing professor at York University’s Schulich School of Business, of the company’s cultural missteps.

“Think of the press they just got. For most brands, contrary to people’s viewpoints, getting controversial coverage is not a good strategy, because most brands don’t want you just to have heard of them, they want you to keep coming back and using them. For a little rebellious organization, this smacks of ‘We’re looking to getting exactly this kind of reaction.’”

Provocation is a routine marketing tool.

Calvin Klein has several times been accused of sexualizing children in ads, beginning in 1980 with 15-year-old Brooke Shields suggestive, “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins” campaign.

And from 1989’s depiction of a black woman breastfeeding a white baby, to last year’s mock-up of world leaders kissing, such as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Benetton continues to stir controversy with its purported mission to “promote tolerance.”

“In order to stand out from the clutter sometimes marketers just sail a bit close to the wind and they’ll do things they think are not too offensive and they’ll hope that those people who are offended by it are not a large enough crowd to really impact the business in any way,” said David Dunne marketing professor at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

“And the controversy can actually sometimes help because your target market may feel they’re a bit edgier and more tolerant of this than the actual people who are offended.”

However, with the advent of social media, the provocative sell is riskier, given how quickly and widely even marginalized groups can disseminate their grievances, Dunne said.

“These days it only takes one or two people to have a message that really resonates online; and before you know it, it’s all over Facebook and it’s all over Twitter,” he explained. “That then means it can much more easily backfire on you.”

Case in point: after hanging up from the Star, the Irish-born academic Tweeted to his 77 followers about the Urban Outfitters merchandise, suggesting “Fire the Marketing Dept for damaging the brand.”

While Urban Outfitters, characterized by Dunne as “a fairly mainstream young person’s brand,” has yet to address the Irish discontent, Tweeters like @stoprush which lists 8,600 followers are inundating advertisers with demands to cut ties with American radio broadcaster Rush Limbaugh’s national radio show after he called a student a slut for requesting birth control funding.

“We have monitored the unfolding events and have determined that Mr. Limbaugh’s comments are not in line with our values,” said a sample statement from AOL, which dropped their sponsorship along with AllState and Sears.

As for companies that genuinely don’t want to incite, Middleton’s advice is simple: “If there’s even a slightest concern that a stereotype would offend, even with a sense of humour, in this day and age, don’t do it.”

But the danger with that is “You get so scared off of doing anything that you create the biggest sin in marketing communication — your advertising is bland and utterly forgettable,” he added.