Back in 2003, I did a talk at Ogilvy called “Are We All Going To Hell?” – looking at the impacts of advertising, and suggesting we worked in an amoral industry – not morally evil, just morally AWOL.
I was reminded of this by a new report called Think Of Me As Evil by the Public Interest Research Centre and WWF-UK.
If you’re wondering about the slightly strange title of their report, it comes from a quote by Rory Sutherland, ex-president of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, and a former colleague of mine at Ogilvy. He said:
The truth is that marketing raises enormous ethical questions every day—at least it does if you’re doing it right. If this were not the case, the only possible explanations are either that you believe marketers are too ineffectual to make any difference, or you believe that marketing activities only affect people at the level of conscious argument.
Neither of these possibilities appeals to me. I would rather be thought of as evil than useless.
The report derives its name from this quote, and opens with it. It’s a shame to feel the need to cast a villain, in what is otherwise a valuable and provocative piece of research.
We all agree on the undesirable impacts of advertising: everything from negative self-image to the debt crisis and climate change can be credibly linked to advertising in some way. It’s something that genuinely needs to be looked at. However, I have a few questions.
- First, can you really isolate advertising from broader consumer culture? Cause/effect? Isn’t the real problem our rapacious “I shop therefore I am” society – of which advertising is a symptom, as much as a cause?
- Second, are consumers really docile masses waiting to be programmed by the clever persuaders? Consumers aren’t innocents in this, there is as much “pull” as there is “push”.
- Third, are we attacking a fading force, as the advertising industry itself opines its decline? Aren’t social factors and cultural norms becoming greater determinants of behaviour, at least in the developed markets?
- Fourth, can’t advertising be used for good? Like any tool, it’s not intrinsically good or bad: what about the long-running and successful UK drink drive campaign, or work in Africa to make families feel it’s a good thing for girls to go to school?
It’s a shame to go straight into an attack-and-defend mode of dialogue. Something I’ve learnt since moving into corporate work: quickly get above “good and evil”. Don’t polarise people from the outset. Of course Georgie Monbiot will write about it, but the people who count will tune it out.
People like Rory Sutherland. He and I don’t agree on politics, for sure – but I know he’s a big advocate of the power of communications as a positive social tool, and one of the most influential industry voices. Did anyone actually speak to him before writing this? Or his industry peers? They shouldn’t be the enemy of this report, but the point of it.
Images from my other old ad agency, Mother – a Kruger inspired campaign for Selfridges (source).
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