He looked to gain attention to them by shock tactics.
The show often uses shock tactics to get the participants to lose weight.
Frantically, he tried one shock tactic after another to get her attention.
He found it still worked as a shock tactic.
As a shock tactic it didn't work very well.
I do agree with you that shock tactics are counter-productive.
They've found it easy to push me around so far, because all the advantage of shock tactics was on their side.
If shock tactics like that help get the message across and save lives, then I'm all in favour.
The most famous shock tactic is the medieval cavalry charge.
The shock tactics worked better than any amount of carefully delicate probing could have done.