Advertising=a fundamental force for good?
In the editorial piece the founder of the magazine, John Bird, discusses how things are so much better now than in the old days.
‘In fact there was so much that was loathsome about the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s I grew up in that you can only come to the conclusion they were loathsome times. And we are well out of those times. I remember how acceptable it was to talk about disabled people as ‘spastics’, as failed and cast-off people who were only good to joke at.
Or women and girls were described without personality, purposeless other than to be on your arm or in your bed or up against a wall.
British governments and many of the people looked upon foreigners as some low form of life, not just because of their colour but their culture, their food and their clothing. ‘John Foreigner’ was how posh people described anyone who wasn’t British.
Children could be beaten on public transport by their parents without anyone turning a blind eye. Even a total stranger might grab you by the ear because of some misdemeanour – a well-tossed stinkbomb might do it – and you would be thrown to the floor.
I remember all these times, and the racism and classism – the anti-humanity of it all – and thank the lord that we got out of it.
But how? What changed?
…The big thing was our embrace of consumerism, from the early to mid-1950s days of commercial television – with its incessant round of TV ads with monkeys drinking tea while chatting and riding push bikes – to the clothes we got on hire purchase from Burton and other high-street tailors.
We became customers, and suddenly coppers, teachers, magistrates, shopkeepers and publicans seemed to realise our evocative power – our money.
We changed so radically that soon, although our working lives might still be shit, we used deodorant and shower gels. And had baths more than once a week and changed our underwear at least twice a week.
And attitudes changed. Appearances changed. The good old days, on reflection, were not that good, and I am so glad we are where we are. But we’ve still got a shit lot to do to make this society more just and free. But then, that’s another story.’
That’s an interesting theory; one that squarely lays much of the credit for the upward mobility of the less well-off at the door of London’s advertising agencies. (I imagine that Alan Parker’s work, which really broke through the class divide with more working class casts and situations, accelerated this effect.)
The current default position for many is to consider globalisation and consumerism as the endless feeding of a giant beast that will not be satisfied until is has gobbled up every resource the planet can produce, and all its inhabitants are hocked up to their eyeballs, enslaved to years of debt.
But further afield, beyond the First World consumerist guilt, the world has been getting steadily better in clear and measurable ways that might not be readily apparent to the middle classes of this country.
If I were Dave Trott I would now make a point about people not being able to see beyond the end of their noses.
But I’m not.
So I’ll just stop here.
Just finished reading Stuffocation by James Wallman. I think you might appreciate some of it.
There’s a case, for sure.
But I’m not sure advocates of Friedan’s ‘The Feminine Mystique’ would argue that advertising was a force for good. Rather, they would argue that it was advertisers who directly sought to put women in the kitchen, to use their fancy new white goods, to shut up, and to do just what their husbands told them.
The Friedan feminists would say that the change in women was in spite of advertisers.
Of course, it’s a theory, and not fact. But, again, a case can be made.
Yes. My conclusion about John Bird’s theory is deliberately noncommittal, but it would be reasonable to suggest that advertising has been a force for harm as well as good.
I was just surprised at the extent to which it could be considered ‘good’.
Rory Sutherland once said, “We live in a society where you can go to TESCO at three in the morning and buy a microwave oven for a tenner, and nobody’s happy.”
It’s a great observation. It has the case both for and against the consumerist advance inherent in it.
That is a very astute observation.
‘Your mind is its own worst enemy’.
There’s another.
I quite enjoyed the 60’s and 70’s but then again I quite enjoyed the 80s 90s 00s and I’m quite enjoying the 10s too. I think it’s because I don’t give too much of a shit about anything. Including my reasonably senior position in advertising (ie sometimes people listen to what I’m saying instead of never listening to what I’m saying).
Rest assured when I’m being relatively senior I’m pretending like mad that I actually do give a shit.
I think Bird is missing a step in advertising contribution to making the world today a more egalitarian, relaxed, respectful place than it was. Advertising’s prime aim is to stimulate economic activity, mainly through more consumer purchases. It also helps through B2B, but that’s another story. More economic activity improves standards of living, which creates economic opportunity, jobs, better education and health, etc. All these lay the foundations for a better society, but they are not enough. We needed Germaine Greer, Friedan and others to point out anomalies and injustices, to ensure that we took advantages of the opportunities to advance. And of course all the good can be undone by politicians – as Hitler demonstrated. So, everlasting ticks for advertising, but it’s not the whole story. And remember, there were times, during ecomic booms in the 1960s and 1980s, when advertising was blamed for making people too materialistic.
I think the materialism accusation is, for many people, where advertising sits. As an industry it’s generally viewed in a negative way and I think much of that negativity comes from its position as a promoter of the superficial, material and consumerist ways.
The Bird article was one of the first things I’d read where a lot of credit had been given to its other effects without any qualifying corollaries.
Ben, does your dad write a blog about breakfast?
Because, if so, he just became my new hero.
There are societies where they put together the component parts of cheap microwaves for conglomerates to flog 24 hours of the day.
I imagine they’re not so stoked about it either.
Then again, maybe they’re happy they have jobs. And those that don’t have jobs, well maybe they have their health? And if you’re not healthy…?
Consumerism is highly addictive. And it requires some intricate navigation to try not to shit on everyone lower than you whilst gobbling up everything you didn’t know you needed.
Blah, yes he does.
Find out just how hot the oatmeal is served, or how many coffee refills you get at breakfast places all over Southern California.
I’m sure he’d be delighted that you’re a fan.
For the rest of you, please visit http://billkaywriter.com/
Ben,
You’re blog doesn’t swear much anymore?
Why the cunting fuck not?
But you don’t hear the “materialistic” criticism much these days, and I think that’s because we can do with all the economic stimulus we can get, without asking too many questions. We’re in the soup kitchen! Of course advertising promotes materialism, because it is trying to persuade us to buy material goods and services. It’s only the excess that is arguably bad – and that’s not a problem these days.
Dear Blah, as I never tire of hero worship, do email me on billkay111@gmail.com.
@FLAL: I’m more chilled, motherfucker. Innit?
@Bill: but I don’t recall much moaning about materialism even before the recent crash. It seemed then that people were delighted to overconsume/enjoy the bling bling etc.
I don’t really recall the anti-materialism thing since Thatcher’s time, where there seemed to be more of a class-based resentment between the haves and the have nots.
But now that people in council houses have satellite TV and you can buy all the Top Shop and Primark stuff you like then throw it away, there are fewer have-nots to complain.
Let’s be honest, it’s what we advertise, rather than advertising that did it? A funny thing working on a global food brand though – we advertise to women as if it’s the 1970’s, because, for all the markets we can potentially grow in, it is.
Isn’t it about time you got rid of that surveillance patch thing? And wrote another book? The first one was good fun.
I think I’ll leave the surveillance patch thing. Its random pointlessness feels in keeping with the intention of the website it links to.
And I have written another book – two actually.
This post details the current situation with the Instinct sequel: http://www.ben-kay.com/2013/08/the-rollercoaster-ride-of-not-selling-a-book/
But I’m now giving very serious consideration to self-publishing, as it’ll get my book out there in a way that I can control. Maybe I’ll write a post about that in the near future…
Surely in these days of market saturation, advertising often just hinders consumption – by adding to costs and raising prices?
This is an argument I’ve heard made by Rory Sutherland – I paraphrase: “if you want to live in a future with fewer material goods, you can either be poorer – which in general people don’t like – or you can live in a world where actually intangible (or ‘perceived’, advertising-generated) value constitutes a greater part of overall value.”