Can Advertising Teach the World to Sing in Perfect Harmony?
Thursday, July 2, 2009
I think, often, advertising is aimed at the materialistic side of all of us. There are very few advertisements that promote a positive change or a concept or an ideal to which a sane-minded individual should, in a perfect world, aspire to reach or become. Most advertisements, in face, leave it unclear as to what product they are even advertising. Sex, eroticism, innuendo's, and fantasies are all the concoctions of advertising executives who seek to increase their profit by appealing to our baser human instincts. PSAs and other human rights advertisements/announcements are often attempting to aim at our higher human instincts but even they often miss the mark through the use of celebrity endorsements and badly portrayed messages. I saw a PSA the other day about senior abuse and I thought it was one of those joke advertisements like you see on Funny or Die. It wasn't. Yet, every time I see the ad I giggle because I can't take it seriously. Other PSAs where they use celebrities like Pamela Anderson and get them naked in order to stop us from wearing fur and using animal products also miss the mark because all I see is a naked Pamela Anderson--you almost forgot the cause she's trying to promote in that particular scenario.
The only kind of advertising I think might make the world a little better would be ad council PSAs. I hate to admit it, but I totally detest those "The More You Know" ads meant to influence culture in the light of what is politically correct or trendy at the moment. In college we called those (as well as Brandon on 90210's "teaching moments" and Bob Saget's Moral lessons on Full House) Power Downs. It basically signaled that it was time to turn off the television and go do something lurid.
hmmm... Hard question... I was in Eastern Europe for awhile and there was this one commercial that played all the time and due to not speaking the language I had no idea what the commercial was for. But this lil kid was drawing all over the wall of the living room. His parents come in on it. Next we see the dad hanging a frame around the wall scribbles. It just really touched me. Where as most parents would freak if they saw it these parents wanted to display it as art. I had just never thought of it like that...
I don't know... i just still remember that commercial years later... maybe for a bank? :P
As some people have pointed out below, marketers use psychological techniques (like classical conditioning) to make us have to have the product. By pairing a pleasurable stimulus with their product, we feel that buying that product will get us that stimulus. While this could seem like a strange approach it does work. John Watson, a scientist who perfected the classical conditioning process, started out as a psychologist and then went onto advertising, and through this method made a huge amount of money. Nowadays, however, some companies seem to use this method ad nauseum. Just look at that one commercial of Paris Hilton eating a whopper, wearing scantily clad clothing, and (above all else) bending over washing a truck. Some marketers take that whole "pairing a pleasurable stimulus" a little bit too far.
@schadenfreude unfortunately the people who make the ads are interested in one thing...money, and the best way to get this is to make us, the audience, want to have their product more than anything.
I found this surprisingly profound for something coming from Pfizer, who I think is pretty much the devil. They give medicine to the sick, but only after they squeeze every last penny and every last ounce of life from them. That's like giving a homeless guy food IF he first dances for you, acts like an animal, crawls on all fours, begs for the food, and gives you the clothes on his back.
That said, I think this ad has a good message, and that advertising, as shallow as it is, can sometimes be a good thing. It can spread messages of hope and revolution, even if it happens to be sponsored by, say, smooth, refreshing Coca-Cola. If I see a good ad with a good message or idea, I try to just ignore everything BUT that message, including the company, and just focus on what the as itself is saying.
@faintestofhearts and @MElamas - And Ellen Degeneres is really a Cover Girl??
@schadenfreude and @crazy_mama - the funny thing is that if ads were straightforward communication of a product's usefulness, they would sell no product, and would be unbearable to watch. Advertising works because they manipulate our emotions, but that is not advertising's fault, we're already wired to receive those frequencies.
The fact is, you can do the same to push a worthwhile cause, or get a message out that the public wouldn't already get. And now that we enter the era of the 12 second ad, the challenge, and opportunity is there for everybody, whether they are pitching dubious herbals or a way to bring wifi to Africa's poor.
Question is, how far would you go for a worthy cause?
@faintestofhearts -or that Cindy Crawford really likes her pathetic furniture from Rooms to Go.
Advertising should be used to honestly and straightforwardly communicate to us the potential usefulness of the product they're trying to sell us.
These days, most advertisements are useless, and use all of their time and resources to try and grab our attention or hypnotize us instead of serve us to make a correct decision.
I am really torn on this issue. My most recent employment was as a copywriter at an ad agency, even though I've always been such an idealist and had long figured I'd wind up working for a non-profit, doing work that "mattered."
Anyway, especially from my point of view as a feminist, I have always been extremely weary of advertising. Ads' widespread depiction of women as airbrushed, sexual objects is harmful and contributes to mentalities that demean and inflict violence against women.
I would argue that all ads are misleading to some degree, as they aim to attach feelings and aspirations to products that do no inherently offer that type of emotional or other value. Even when a product is truly useful or can enhance our lives, there is so often exaggeration and manipulation at play, in order to differentiate that product from other similar products. It's trickery.
That said, having been inside the advertising world as full participant, I know that creativity and good intentions can lift advertising above pure manipulation to the realm of inspiration. The process of concepting for a new campaign can be quite a journey, with creatives sifting through their own experiences and looking out into the world for a spark of truth from which to build a connection with people.
The lingering problem is that however pure the creatives' intention, the end goal is to generate sales. To produce income, not to better lives. I feel that children should receive media education, to be made aware of the messages being sent to them through advertising and to develop the ability to view these messages with a more critical, selective and conscious eye. (Better still, advertising to children should be banned.)
So, I guess my rambling answer leads me to the conclusion that there is an upside. There is inspiration to be found in good, innovative advertising. My experience allows me to appreciate the creative inspiration and kernel of truth that lies within some ads. However, when viewing ads, a filter is needed. A filter that many, especially children, may not possess.
I dislike ads, and I don't believe in them. I don't believe famous beautiful models really use Revlon. I like some funny commercials and others for their music.
Anything else...TiVo.
If we were to sing in perfect harmony as advertised, then all hope is lost, and advertising the cause of our demise.
I distrust the attitude that corporations are somehow inherently bad, evil or even soulless. Bad, evil or soulless acts of corporations generally can be traced back to bad, evil or soulless managers or executives.
The Pfizer example is a good illustration. The behavior of the research team means that someone within Pfizer -- maybe the researchers themselves -- decided to ignore ethical behavior. It doesn't follow that Pfizer exists to do evil in the world: it exists to create products that improve health and well-being and to make a profit selling those products to people who are unwell.
Hence the message in the "Be Brave" ad. The sick kid's only chance at beating her disease lies with the products of megacorporations, and if the corporations disappear, so do their products and the treatments that depend on them. At a time when the producers of those products are disparaged and distrusted as "Big Pharma," that's a pretty important message to put out. (It would be a catastrophe, for example, if distrust of Big Pharma led to shortages of swine flu vaccine this fall or to a widespread refusal to take that vaccination -- just as it's already a catastrophe that so many parents of small children are refusing to have their children vaccinated for communicable childhood diseases.)
As to advertising per se, it ideally serves the essential function of helping people find products and services that make their lives better. Certainly it often gets misapplied to point people in the direction of products and services that are useless or even dangerous: beyond the regulatory bodies that have the job of preventing or punishing that misapplication, it's incumbent on us as consumers to learn not to take advertising at its face value.
Advertising is just that. Advertising and nothiing more. If a company is not one you want to deal with then you have that right, what with it still being a free country and all. I think the people that don't pay attention to the world around them get suckered into thinking that a company is great because the ad's great. This isn't going to change. There will always be silly, uninformed people out there. Willing to buy anything that's "shiny".
The thing to do when you see an advertisment you like or that draws your interest is go and do a little research. Some aren't willing to do that. Or it just doesn't cross thier mind. That's ok. I like to think that there are more out there that think about what they're doing.
Makes me happy every time. Don't care why.
Check this video out -- The T-Mobile Dance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM
The people who make the advertisements are the upside. And if the message is good who cares about the brand. Consciousnesss is expressing itself in many ways. Some people in the company might have a good heart.
What makes me angry is when companies manipulate people through their advertisements and the less alert and consciouss ones fall into the trap. Like Coca Cola dressing coke bottles like húmans (bikini and shorts) and creating this whole image around coke which people so easily identify with and buy it in hope of "becoming the image created around coke"
There is definitely an upside to advertising. I like to be informed of things out there that I will enjoy and will help me. Of course, most commercials make me sick. They either are very manipulative and even lying or at the least they are just poorly done. If I am moved by something from a company and I know their only motive is money, I just take what good I can from it and try to leave the bad behind. It doesnt always work like that, but that is what I shoot for.
I find something inherently disturbing about trying to manipulate others under the banner of altruism.
What a deculture.
I'm majoring in advertising right now and I had researched this issue. I mean, the paraellel to this example would have to be the Dove/Axe commercials. We've all seen the Axe commercial - glamazon women running around in bikinis to track down guys who wear Axe; the hypocrisy comes when you find the same company puts out the Dove commercials asking women to be themselves.
With this kind of inconsistencies, its hard to keep a sound mind when talking about advertising. But some aren't like this. I like to look at advertising as pieces of art. The only things I take away from them are the product and what it SHOULD do. Then I'll make the decision if I want to buy it or not.
Advertising ethics is a grey area and has been for years. Maybe one day that will change...
I think it is extremely important to know that we are, in fact, being played. The more we are aware of this unpleasant fact, the less susceptible we are to manipulation. We have to be careful not to jump on the bandwagon just because someone makes great propaganda, or else we'll end up like Germany in the 1940s.
"Those pictures of an Aryan nation just looked soooo appealing! I didn't think anyone would get hurt!"
I would say go ahead and like the commercial, just remember where it came from, as there's always a glimpse of truth even in the deepest lie. Look for that.
Thanks for the thoughtful question.
DISCUSSION TOOLSET
@yasijoon: I think Adbusters hit the nail on the head with these PSAs:
https://www.adbusters.org/category/video_type/adbusters