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Do the creators of advertising have any obligation other than to drive results for clients?
Clearly, a lot of people believe that intelligent, engaging advertising is also the most effective. But it's equally clear that a lot of people don't. Just watch TV.
Most broadcast advertising is still intrusive -- the audience doesn't seek it, it seeks them. Beyond the obvious responsibility to be effective for the client, do people who make ads have any responsibility to enlighten, inform or entertain the audience?
TED Initiatives – Ads Worth Spreading
http://www.ted.com/initiatives/aws
http://partners.ted.com/adsworthspreading/
John Gregory
There is a continuous drip feed of vacuous consumerism being presented as ways of life we are clearly meant to emulate and aspire to. As such the motive for profit and the making of money have an enormous effect of what successive generations of people come to believe as reality. Are people working in advertising agencies able to think about advertising in these ways? If they did they surely would not stay working there for long.
Charles Porter 50+
I started this conversation because I perhaps saw one too many commercials that caused me to throw something at the TV. Griffin Tucker, in his response, expressed it a different way. I think the words were "a great hatred".
The point I wanted to make was simple. If you're going to put something on the air that we all have to look at, put a little creativity and craft and intelligence into it. Don't just scream "buy one, get one free" for thirty seconds Naively, I thought this was a yes-or-no question. Instead, we've ended up with an exchange of some really interesting ideas ranging from the duties of an individual to society to the role of popular culture to who gets to decide what's good and bad anyway.
James Walker was, I think, the first to respond. His comments have been unvaryingly intelligent and thoughtful and he is not someone I'd like to debate. His position, however, is that an ad maker has a responsibilty only to the client, and he uses the analogy that an architect's responsibly is also only to the client whose house he's designing. I think this is an apt analogy but it brings me to the opposite conclusion. I think an architect's FIRST responsibility is to the client, but I think there is also a responsibility to think about the effects -- aesthetically, environmentally, and otherwise -- that his or her creation will have on the community and the world.
I fully expect to be intellectually trumped by James in the next 24 hours, but I'm okay with that. The fact is that this conversation has caused me to think way more deeply about this issue than I ever intended, and to re-examine what was, admittedly, a pretty simplistic position.
And in the end, I guess that's the point.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Debra Smith 200+
Charles Porter 50+
If he's interested, we can certainly talk. It's sort of silver grey.
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
.shows to go you if you take any element that is about any interaction between and among humans, intsitutions, corporations and stick to it in discenrnment and respect you will eventually arrive at a kind fo higher ground where you are wiser than when you sarted the process and have more of value to bring to the next round whether here at Ted or as Conte is doing backinto our lives through conversations at home and perhaps public meetings.
Here it seems as if we also landed in a kind of consensus that we would appreciate it if coprorations and advertisers speak whenever possible to the higher and better of "we the people" and that there is no reason not to do that
but that we as individuals have to take repsonsbility for our own choices and our actions..we can't expect corporations and advertisers to re engineer us
.I didn't expect this conversation to lead to such fundamentally important ground.Thank you all. I have learned so much being here with you
.PS Charles..rag top? sports model? miles?? ( just kidding.. I will never give up my bright red 2001 jeep wrangler soft top..even if it takes an army to put the top up and down)
Javier Tapia
Chris Valentino
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
I like your further observation that when ad creators can give added value to the client and to to the public by tapping into and reflecting the most positive heartbeats.
Seems so small but if every ad had that extra positive spin on the the rythmns and heartneats of the pubkic at arge it could have a very dramatic positive impact on culture as a whole. Glad if that is already a strategy for your ad campaigns.
Comment deleted
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
"straighten up and buy right"
I am taking t-shirt orders..send sizes.
John Gregory
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
what size?
Omar Haleem
Another point would be an emphasis on understanding the strategic goals of the organization and implementing strategic marketing plans which take into consideration the evolving nature of the business and the challenges that could be faced in the future. e.g Oil and Gas companies should have a strategic timeline for diversifying into alternative industries and advertising companies should understand and appreciate their role as facilitators in the quest for better more environmentally sustainable alternatives. (tobacco industry would also benefit from such integrated strategic marketing systems that will help in weaning them away and assist them in branching out into new development initiatives.
Advertisers face another challenge with respect to the sophisticated viewer who perceives their pitch with more awareness of techniques and can actually understand where the presentation is aimed and it's effectiveness. People are less likely to be susceptible to a pitch that is in sharp contrast to the actual information on the ground. e.g an ad for an Oil & Gas company provides it's viewers with it's emphasis on corporate social responsibilities which the news networks are exposing catastrophic environmental damage to the eco-system. Flexibility is essential in today's fast track news dissemination.
griffin tucker 10+
in my ideal world, ads would be informative and if i could have a choice of not seeing a particular ad again, with an option of explaining why i don't want to, i would more often than not explain why i don't want to see that ad again.
this would be possible through an internet 'cookie.'
with the amount of people responding as to why they don't want to see a particular ad again, this would be valuable information for the advertiser, and would help them focus their attention as to how they can change the product, or remove it altogether.
Thomas Pisarchick 10+
Cornelia Coricovac
Joe Delsen 20+
Using latest figures available, in 2005, the wealthiest 20% of the world accounted for 76.6% of total private consumption. The poorest 20% just 1.5%. ( http://bit.ly/ConsumptionConsumerism , http://bit.ly/ThePowerToTransform )
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Thomas Pisarchick 10+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Thomas Pisarchick 10+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Thomas Pisarchick 10+
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
http://www.archive.org/details/AdaCurtisCenturyoftheSelf_0
Eddie, below, introduced us to this amazing film on the birth of advertisng and public relations.It was an eye opener and it tells us a lot about our vulnerability to manipulation.
But it's all so simple. We can totally ignore advertising, choose ad free enviornments to get our news and entertainment and live sustainably. If we don't live responsibly we can't blame advertisers or for that matter the product manufactuerers for alll the things we say are wrong.
Every single choice we make as individuals is either in the direction o breaking or feeding that cycle of consumerism that feeds the plutonomy beast .
Obviously advertisers and public relations firms will always be be the front end o that beast doing everything they can to get us buy more than we can afford and not worry too much abouts the degredataion of people or the environment that it took to bring that product to market..
We can break that cycle just by living responsibly, buying sustainably, alining our values with our will in every choice we make.
Or what? We try and talk advertisers into re- engineering us all back to that?
Thomas Pisarchick 10+
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
Thomas Pisarchick 10+
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
we just have to to do it
John Gregory
Mark Meyer 10+
Debra Smith 200+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
in a nutshell: let's ban eating hamburger in public
Mark Meyer 10+
You seem to want it both ways: you're hyper-critical of using government to coerce behavior (and I'm often with you on this), AND you're hyper-critical of insisting people take responsibility for the effects of their actions. You can't have it both ways unless you are for anarchy.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
critical about government coercion, yes. also critical about any other form of coercion. personal responsibility sure. and i see no contradiction here. in fact, i think it is the same thing. we should not try to shift our personal responsibilities to the government. it does not work, and it is unethical.
James Walker 30+
A coupe of comments on your post.
- You talk about Advertisers, and that isn't what Charles's question is about. He asked about the Responsibility of the folks creating the ads on behalf of the Advertisers. In the example of Tobacco ads, the only Responsibility of the ad agency was to the Tobacco company paying the bills. Just like the Trucking Companies delivering the cigarettes. The "Advertiser" (ie: the Tobacco brand owner) might well have a different responsibility.
- Cigarettes are interesting to talk about, because they're extreme (and illegal to advertise). But what about Drink, Gambling, Fatty Foods, Cosmetics, Autos with bad fuel consumption? Do you think advertising of these things should be banned? And if so by whom? Do you think Abortionists should be able to advertise (as they do here in the UK)? Many folks would find it wrong that we allow Abortion advertising yet ban Cigarette advertising; others would want to ban Gambling ads but not Abortionists ads. It'd be a fun debate fighting over who had greater moral authority the pro or anti abortioners, but surely the only deciding question as to whether it is ok for an ad agency to produce ads is if it's legal for them to do?
The only responsibility for an ad-maker is to their client and to act within the law.
(On a personal level, the individual ad man might be very reluctant to make ads for something he disagrees with [let's say, the abortioners, gambling or whatever] but that is a personal decision NOT a RESPONSIBILITY).
John Gregory
You write, “if an adult person decides to disregard the harmful effects for some perceived or real benefits, it is their decision to make, and not yours.” But this is completely missing the point. I’m not telling them not to smoke. If I am telling anyone, which I am not, it would be telling cigarette companies not to advertise addictive poison. In reality it would have to be a democratic decision. So this is not about me dictating.
You say I have the right to educate and organise campaigns and then you connect doing those things to being “instead of working on a better world” and that this is because “some people (you mean me I presume) want to force their value on others.
First, not all campaigns are about “forcing your values on others.” For example a TV campaign against domestic abuse. Second, as someone who sees no problem with multi million dollar advertising campaigns selling addictive poisons as cool lifestyle statements I would have though that you would have been all for any type of campaign? But no, if it’s an anti-smoking campaign suddenly that is “forcing values on others!”
Don’t you think it is rather peculiar that you, the person defending the right of cigarette companies to advertise a product that has and continues to kill millions of people is the same person trying to connect my thinking to “murdering 20% of the people in death camps?”
I am donning my intellectual helmet in preparedness for your next salvo!
Krisztián Pintér 200+
also bear in mind that death camps never were advertised, and people didn't blindly fall for ads, having problems with addiction later. people were taken there by force.
Mark Meyer 10+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
James Walker 30+
John, I find if very hard to follow what you're talking about. I think you may well have some interesting ideas, but I find it hard to understand.
Don't you even believe in the rule of law, the legitimacy of legal patents and brandmarks, the freedom of the individual to make free choices, the freedom of expression whether it be religion or the right of Abortionist and Beer companies (or Cigarettes, back when it was legal to advertise)?
Businesses aren't aliens, they're part of our lives. Small businesses are owned by hard-working folks like you and I - running shops, bicycle repairers, plumbers, ad agencies or whatever. Big businesses are, oh exactly the same, they're owned by hard working people like you and I through our pensions, investments, and insurance.
Through the innovations of great men and women and thanks to these amazing corporations (protected by patents, brands etc), the World is a wonderful place where in the West, post-industrial revolution, Real GDP has doubled every generation. We are literally 4x better off than our grandparent. (Although, the folks in the communist countries were a bit less fortunate and lost a couple of generations of growth... but hey, they're catching up fast).
Advertising is part of this ecosystem, just like Delivery Trucks, IT Systems, Accountants, Lawyers or whatever. The folks in Madison Avenue are to be celebrated just like the Lawyers of Lincoln's Inn.
If it's Legal, it's ok to advertise it. If it's illegal, it's not OK.
The responsibility of my plumber, lawyer, accountant, bicycle guy, builder, adman, etc is only to me, not to you. If you want pay towards my house being built, then you have the right to give the builder some pointers
Krisztián Pintér 200+
John Gregory
just to clarify, I am not saying I agree with the world being run by finacial and physical violence and I certainly hope that in the future we can live in a world that is not run like this.
Please watch the film The Corporation, that may change your disposition about corporations.
cheers
John Gregory
I appreciate your response. I don't think the points I raised are intellectually hard to understand, it must be a matter of our conflicting ideas about how the world is that makes it hard for me to understand you and you me. Hopefully we both have a sport or something else we love in common!
There is a world of difference between a small business and a multinational corporation. I do not fear the effects of advertising if it s only 'Bob' advertising his bikes in the local paper.
For example, unlike 'Bob' British Petroleum, "Like most of its fellow oil companies and a number of industry associations, BP was formerly a member of the Global Climate Coalition (GCC): The coalition has heavily lobbied governments and has mounted persuasive advertising campaigns in the US to turn public opinion against concrete action on greenhouse gas emissions. The so called 'carbon club' lead the way in undermining public support for action to curb climate change." Source http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=289
"Big businesses are, oh exactly the same, they're owned by hard working people like you and I through our pensions, investments, and insurance." I don't 'buy' that at all, I hear people say that on the TV from time to time. The truth is most people in the world have no investments and no pension. Those that have pensions have increasingly seen their pensions disappear one way or another. Look at the difference in wealth between the top 1% of the British population, the power they have and the then look at the wealth and power of everyone else and then tell me that we are somehow the owners of corporations. More on this and the lawlessness of the world please see http://www.democracynow.org/2007/6/5/john_perkins_on_the_secret_history
and this
http://www.democracynow.org/2006/3/7/lawless_world_bush_considered_flying_us
John Gregory
my apologies for offending you, I sincerely did not intend to. I have a dry sense of humour and don't always know when to use it and when not to.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
James Walker 30+
Re. ownership of companies. Of course if you take folk in Saharan Africa, they don't have pensions/insurance and don't have a stake in big corporations. But nor do they own bicycel repair shops, ad agencies, plumbers etc. If we take the hard working folk here in Denver where I am today, or Manchester UK where I spend a lot of time, or London UK etc etc, some folks own their own businesses (shops, carpenters, smithies, ad agencies etc) and some folks participate in bigger companies through ownership through savings and investments, pensions etc. The public sector folk with their generous pensions of course have some of the biggest stakes in private companies (quite funny, really...). So, a distinction between a small business, a medium size or a big one is all a bit spurious. We own them all!!!
If you don't like Advertising (and by implication therefore, brandmarks, patents etc), and you appear not to be a fan of commerce, what kind of system would you prefer? How would companies be organised, their investments protected and innovation (cool stuff like Groupon, valued at $20bn... think how much wealth that's going to create) be incentivised. I probably think Democracy and Capitalism (or Innovation-alism actually, as that what creates money not Capital now) are the least worst systems, but I can't think of anything better. Can you?
John Gregory
Ouch! Those are some pretty sharp connections you are making. Still, it's great to be able to wrestle with these things, thanks!
Firstly this is not about me wanting to dictate to people. May I refer you to a three part post to James Walker in which I bring up issues of authoritarianism and democracy?
Secondly, there is a world of difference between characterising people as mindless drones and being aware that billions of people are vulnerable, and seeking to talk about ways of defending them from psychopathic tobacco corporations. I myself have often been vulnerable, who has not? From your logic, if you are ever vulnerable you would not want anyone to help or defend you? If you become sick or old you would not want to be protected or looked after by anyone?
When I started smoking at eighteen I knew the word addictive, but having never been addicted before I did not really know the meaning of the word. It took me numerous attempts throughout the sixteen years that I smoked to give up, then I new what addiction meant, but not before.
When you are young and naïve seeing lots of bronzed Marlboro cowboys and cool John Player Special racing drivers on TV or spread across billboards certainly makes you think that maybe smoking can’t be as bad as some people say. “Why would anyone promote something that could kill you?” And once you are addicted the addiction plays with your mind; it certainly did not help me to overcome my addiction by seeing lots of cool smoking adverts that completely pander to that addicted voice in your head. The addicted voice says things like, I am young, I can give up, but not now, later, “it can’t be that bad, why would they advertise something that kills people?”
Krisztián Pintér 200+
2. if you have vulnerabilities, work on them.
3. corporations are not psychopaths, because they are not persons. a company has a single function to produce some good that is needed. by your logic, a machine is also a psychopath. a knife too.
4. you seem to be motivated by your own falling for smoking. these personal reasons cloud your vision. you simply deny your own personal responsibility, and look for the one to blame. it would help you to accept that you made a mistake, and start helping other people to quit. and not bashing those, who delivered you the product you personally chose to buy.
John Gregory
2 We all have vulnerabilities, perhaps yours may be that on this subject you appear to have very little compassion.
3 Under law corporations are legal persons (utterly crazy yet true). Have you seen the film The Corporation, I recommend you do, it's a great film. It is by your logic and not mine that a knife is a psychopath. I was talking about corporations, which are made of people and are legally defined as having the same rights as persons and yet have the character traits of a psychopath. Corporations single function is not to produce as you say "some good," their legally defined function is to maximise profits for their investors, this is above any other consideration.
4 Yes I am partly motivated by my 'personal reasons,' sometimes people call this being motivated by experience. I'm also motivated by knowing millions of fallible, vulnerable people, which we all are, including you, continue to be preyed upon by powerful rapacious corporations causing death and suffering in vast industrial quantities. But no, to you this is all the fault of the victims and not one percent of the problem is with the corporate drug dealers?
5 I am starting to think you are a corporate algorithm!
Krisztián Pintér 200+
3, under law maybe, but i doubt psychopath is a legal term. i saw the movie, and i liked it, but i knew for sure that people will draw far fetched conclusions from it. but unless a psychopath does something harmful, he is free to move around, and interact with other people. so is the company. and while it is an abnormal condition for a human, a company is by its nature "single minded". deal with it.
4, motivated by experience and blinded by experience is different. i assert that you blame tobacco companies for your own downfall. it is not a good thing to do. you did it wrong, and i'm happy that you were strong enough to overcome it. it is not the tobacco manufacturer's fault that you fell for smoking. just as it is not your friends', wife's, church's or whatever's success that you dropped it. it is your success.
5, and i'm starting to be fed up with your insults.
John Gregory
I heartily disagree with you when you narrow the choices down to two.
“There can only be 2 judges of how you limit advertising on the grounds of "morality":
- What YOU as an individual feel happy to do, and that's a RESPONSIBILITY to yourself
- What's Legal, and that I guess is the RESPONSIBILITY to a wider group that many of the posts here have alluded to”
Firstly, your first ‘choice’ does not exist; obviously, “You as an individual,” have no power to “limit advertising,” this leaves only one of your two judges able to “limit advertising” and that is, as you say “What’s Legal.”
But “What’s legal” is almost exactly the thing you argue against! You say you do not want an ad-Tsar yet you hand the decisions on advertising to “What’s Legal” in other words to a highly centralised decision making system made up of very few people effecting the whole population.
James, I very much appreciate you taking the time to debate this subject with me. Thanks
James Walker 30+
I said 2 choices of the judge of who says if an ad is Ok or not.
- Yourself, as the creator of ads, you have a accountability to your own morality
- A Legal obligation, ie: not to advertise Cigarettes now here in the UK, because to do so is illegal
On top of that, there is your responsibility as a creator of the ad to the Advertiser who has paid you to make it.
I am anti Tsar, anti-mob rule, anti-anarchy. I am pro Law.
The problem with mass ethics is that what if folks don't agree. Do you think it's ok to advertise Casinos, Abortionists, Beauty Parlours, Prostitution, Political Parties, Beer, Big Cars? It's tricky with these, but easy with cigarettes. So, that's why I think just better to leave it to the rule of law.
John Gregory
You raise some really interesting points and questions, “I am [not?] so presumptuous to force my personal morality on other people, and I don't really want anyone else making that decision for me either,” you write. However, in a functioning democracy the question would not be about you, an individual forcing your morality on other people, or about an individual forcing their morality on you. To the population the question is, do we want cigarette advertising? Do we want to publicise and glamorise something that is highly addictive and that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year? Given that most of us know of a friend or family member who has died from smoking related disease, it is my guess that the vast majority of people would be against it.
I think your question “where would you draw the line?” is an unintentional diversion. It is centralised power which seeks standardisation of rules to spread over none identical situations. It is anti-democratic forces, such as legal representatives of cigarette companies who group separate individual things together as one thing and then say that no decision can be made because they are all different. It’s a kind of intellectual slight of hand. Why is it so difficult to judge cigarette advertising on it’s own merits or lack of them? Why do we have to say “If we make this decision we have to make the same decision about other things that are not exactly the same the same?”
I feel the same about your question, ”And, who would be the ad-Tsar with thumbs up/thumbs down at the coliseum of advertising morality?” Why do you suppose we need authoritarian, centralised, overly powerful dictators to make decisions on behalf of the population? Can I light heartedly accuse you of a straw Tsar argument!
John Gregory
You write "I live in London. I sincerely believe here we are in a City ruled by law, not fear of violence." If that is so why do financial institutes and the government continually get away with breaking the law on a vast scale?
The financial violence done to millions in Britain and around the world by London’s hedge funds, casino banking, drug money laundering and offshore tax avoiding. I have seen very little law taking place around these issues. See http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28189.htm and http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/15/offshore_banking_and_tax_havens_have
Then there is the invasion of Iraq: Where not one of the ringleaders has been charged or ever looks likely to be charged for the following criminal behaviour; “to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Both the financial and physical violence emanating from London has caused catastrophic amounts of death, destruction and suffering on a vast industrial scale. Nobody is in prison for organising any of this.
To return to cigarette advertising: Which is really a debate about democracy when we get right down to it; the reason I brought up the idea of us living in a lawless world is that it seemed to me that your argument seemed to divert thinking on this issue away from common sense and morality and towards anti-democratic forces. You unblinkingly assume that we, the population can not compile our individual morality into a group decision, and in so doing hand our democratic ability, indeed, moral right to make group decisions over to an extraordinarily small number of people.
While many laws are good, and make sense, it still does not take away from the sense I have that ethics and law are what become of morality when money and power have had their way with it.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
human body is an environment. some germs find that environment comfortable to live in. some of these are good for us, and some of them are bad. it is hard to formulate a rule what kind of germs can survive in or on the human body. but we can say for sure that the characteristics of the body and the germ itself determines it, and some germs find us a livable place, others don't.
similarly, human mind is an environment for thoughts. some ideas can survive in the mind, and spread to other minds. some do not. some of these ideas are beneficial, some are detrimental. it is hard to tell what ideas can survive. but the characteristics of the human mind and the idea itself are determining it.
the idea of smoking is probably bad, but it spreads. and many more, like pizza-hamburger-fries diet. how to battle the fast spreading, but harmful ideas?
one way is to shut down certain human activities. ban alcohol. ban drugs. ban dangerous sports. ban advertisements. ban certain kinds of investments. doing so, we reduce the exposure to harmful ideas. and at the same time, we leave the mind defenseless to the idea if it somehow sneaks in anyway.
or we can find ways to identify the ideas, and strengthen our mental immune system, to be able to say no to them.
controlling advertisements is a never ending, ever growing battle with mental germs.
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
ads refelect who we are as a culture it is a nirror being held up to us
if we don't like what we see
we can chnage what we are
Thomas Pisarchick 10+
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
Thomas Pisarchick 10+
John Gregory
"How does the fourteen year old child in Manchester or London with alcoholic, abusive parents "find ways to identify the ideas, and strengthen our [their] mental immune system, to be able to say no to them [the adverts].?
Thomas Pisarchick 10+
John Gregory
Thomas Pisarchick 10+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
children can't buy cigarettes. if their parents allow them to get anyway, you have a problem with the parent, not the tobacco manufacturer.
so again, you deny personal responsibility, yours and others', and choose to blame the producer. scapegoat, that is.
John Gregory
correction: I used the word psychopath, I should have used the word pathological, got my paths mixed up. Not seen the film The Corporation for years.
Corporations are immensely powerful pathological institutions and as such are extraordinarily dangerous. It's not a question 'deal' with it. Is there not some part of you that is concerned about having our governments effectively taken over by corporate interests?
Krisztián Pintér 200+
all other points you make here are also false. not all corporations are powerful, and it is debatable whether the biggest corporations has the power of even a middle sized country's government.
this is definitely a question of deal with it. a rock is hard. when we engage in any activity involving rocks, we simply use that knowledge, and don't try to make all rocks on the earth soft. you know the drill, if you plan to make a road through a large rock, you will need explosives. that's it. the company is a machine to effectively transform resources to products people buy. you can hate it if you want, but better know about it, and design our systems around that fact.
governments are still elected. if corporations managed to control them, it happens with the approval of the voters. it is a pity that hundreds of millions fell for such scams, but since it happened, better start to work on it. spread the word, educate people, and stop trying to take the place of the current leaders yourself.
clay blasdel
Try to find ANY TV commercial that does not rely on fantasy. Every picture is fantasy, every idea is science fiction. It's as if advertisers believe their target audience are all stoned or drunk, game-playing or day dreaming. Every fat slob swigging beer is convinced that he will get the hot babe, if only he drinks even more.
Is there such a thing as reality-based advertising? Fantasy is fun, but not to the complete exclusion of reality.
When I shop for a car, for example, I don't want a fantasy price, I want the real thing.
Debra Smith 200+
clay blasdel
Thomas Pisarchick 10+
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
clay blasdel
If advertising aimed at adults instead of young people, advertising would improve. Solid logic would be required to convince older buyers. Ads would smarten-up. Reality would replace fantasy. Hopefully soon.
Debra Smith 200+
I agree with part of your posting but I am reminded of the hugely successful Viagara ads which were aimed directly at adults- and not much logic was used.
Thomas Pisarchick 10+
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
Debra Smith 200+
John Gregory
Why would anyone want to do anything that causes people to do more of something that will slowly poison or kill them? OK, institutionalised greed and ignorance, I'll give you that, but are there any other reasons?
Krisztián Pintér 200+
John Gregory
Seriously, that's a better question? Asking a question you should know the answer too? But I suppose you would have to care about people who are, or have been, vulnerable to the cynical mind games of cigarette advertisers. If you cared you would know the answer, surely?
Answer to your question:
Because cigarettes smoker generally start when they are young, know less, and believe that they don't have to worry about any negative consequences in the way that young people have done for millennia.
Also, because once you start smoking it is extremely hard to give up as nicotine is very addictive. I started smoking when I was 18, it took me five attempts and sixteen years before I was finally able to give up. The addiction makes you lie to yourself about the negative consequences and advertisers are there to amplify the voice of your addiction. More than this, at a time when young people are often insecure about their image, advertising campaigns were/are designed to make smoking look cool.
What you are arguing for is the right for advertisers to promote anything, no matter how dangerous it maybe. All, moral, legal or ethical responsibility is with them, the people.
But the main problem here is that most people, most of the time, deal with each other with respect. In other words we trust each other. It is deeply in-bedded in us that the building trust and trusting people is deeply important to us, it makes our real lives work. I believe that advertisers take advantage of peoples trust, even if, or perhaps especially if this can be done subliminally. "How can smoking be so bad if there are (or have been) all these adverts around showing healthy cowboys and cool race car drivers? Surely nobody would be so criminal to promote smoking if it was so bad, surely the health departments of governments would ban such advertising?" I may have thought to myself back in 1985 when I started smoking
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
To me baming adverisers for essentially affirming what "we the people" desire is a sort of "the devil made made me do it defense"..ie no defense at all The entire arguement holding ad agencies responsble for the sins of their clients holds no sway with me..
We..you and me are the mroal conscious beings..corporations are not moral conscious beings. the primary responbility is ours..to not by products that corrput the enviornment, come form epxloitation etc. Capital Markets exist through our consent. If we boycott..they shut down. It;s as simpe as that. Remember the Sullivan rrinciple which called on everyone in the wolrd to boycott South Africa until it ended aprtheid. We can do that every time we care enough to choose.
Blaming advrerisers is just a bizarre extension of the commodification of narcissism fostered by what the internet has been to date.
It is "we" not advretisers who have to shape up and aline our actions with our values. If noone buys clothes that aren't fair market fair wage guanteed ..no one will produce such clothes..it's as simple as that.,
Krisztián Pintér 200+
everyone knows tobacco is addictive. everyone knows it is harmful. there is no trickery or fraud involved in selling it. so if an adult person decides to disregard the harmful effects for some perceived or real benefits, it is their decision to make, and not yours.
you have the right, on the other hand, to educate people, to spread the word, to organize anti-smoking campaigns, to finance such campaigns. but here we go again. instead of working on a better world, some people just want to force their values on others. such thinking starts with banning "evil" things, and ends in murdering 20% of the people in death camps.
Eddie Williams
It's a documentary how corporations started applying psychoanalysis into public relations.
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
T he ultimate source of the "devil made me do it" defense for our bad choices..the original seed of the commodification of narcissism .I am about to bring a conversation on the commodification of narcissism to Ted Conversations and have included this link. Hope you will all join me there
It goes right to the heart of the big resistence obvious here to what Jmes is saying about "responsibility" Forgive me James if I over simplify..and I am speaking not for James but for what I see of value in his point, which is that .responsbility is a matter iif indiviudual conscious choice..not something we can prescribe for othesr or delegate to others.
Culturally we have become nearly incapable of that. We can't take responsbility for our own choices. We buy products evry day that we know full well violate our stated values..we blame advertisers and manufacturers insteda of taking responsbility for our values, acting on our values and simply not buyingthese things..
John Gregory
You wrote ".did you see my comments below on the ban on cigarette advertising? all of a sudden seems very weird to me (although I endorsed it whole heartedly at the time) that we banned ads but not the product."
I think the answer is fairly well known. If you ban recreational substances they become a whole new, unregulated market for criminals to run and profit from. I believe that is one of the reasons why Prohibition in the States was ended; the government could not stop alcohol production or drinking, but could see that they had handed over a vast market to the criminal class which in turn created a whole set of other problems.
The same would be true if you tried to ban growing tobacco, cigarette manufacture and distribution. However banning advertising of certain products is very easy to implement and is the common sense thing to do. Why advertise any dangerous and addictive substance?
Debra Smith 200+
Bernays surely felt that he had responsibility only to the guy who would make him rich. He helped put the entire American population out of the drivers seat by turning them from citizens with a voice to mere consumers. The bizzare thing is that very few of Freud's theories ever stood up against any kind of scrutiny in terms of validity and yet they had so very much effect on society.
James Walker 30+
So, tobacco remains an emotive subject, both generally and in specific relation to advertising.
Tobacco is a great example because it is so extreme, and helps us understand a point of principle precisely because wilfully poisoning people for profit is a a pretty abhorrent idea, and (although not a nice thought) it is the case that the creators of ads for Tobacco had no more responsibility to external audiences than the Tobacco's companies lawyers.
Ok, so you think some Legal products shouldn't be advertised, so what about: Fatty foods; Strong spirits; Beer; Chips; Processed Meats....? Many of my friends argue that the advertising industry is complicit in creating unhealthy expectations of physical beauty and does too often objectifies women. Cosmetics, Fragrance, and a lot of luxury goods advertising presents a view of the World that I am uncomfortable with. Some people might say selling Automobiles with poor fuel economy is not to be encouraged. I might not think the advertising of certain crappy food should be allowed. But, John, where would you draw the line? And, who would be the ad-Tsar with thumbs up/thumbs down at the coliseum of advertising morality? I am so presumptuous to force my personal morality on other people, and I don't really want anyone else making that decision for me either.
There can only be 2 judges of how you limit advertising on the grounds of "morality":
- What YOU as an individual feel happy to do, and that's a RESPONSIBILITY to yourself
- What's Legal, and that I guess is the RESPONSIBILITY to a wider group that many of the posts here have alluded to
Otherwise, the only responsibility is the provision of services to your client. Just like a plumber, architect, lawyer, doctor etc.
John Gregory
If adverts are promoting something that is dangerous a population has a right to defend itself from that. If they live in a functioning democracy advertising cigarettes would be banned from promoting destructive behaviour.
It's really a question of weather you believe that the right to advertise a deadly product out ways the right of people to act intelligently and stop that from happening. In other words hundreds of thousand of lung tumours are less important than the right of cigarette companies to promote their products, to enrich themselves and their stock holders.
James Walker 30+
Without law - you have one opinionated individual, or a group of folks, trying to assert their moral authority to be superior to other's. I'm just not that vain to think I have that right :)
Cigarette advertising was banned, by law, for the reasons you say.
But what about advertising of those things not by law, but I think morally a bit dodgy in some people's eyes... Crap food; Spirits, Gambling; Big cars that are fuel inefficient; Abortion services, etc? Abortions's a good one, as you'll get very polarised views on the morality of abortionists' advertising, and the only way to avoid a screaming match over whose moral authority is greater, is to say that we have to be governed by the rule of law. If it's legal, it's ok to advertise it. Personally, my own morality might wan to ban Gambling advertising but say that Abortion is ok, or vice versa, but I don't have the right to impose my thinking on other people.
The rule of law has to be above the arbitrary morality of one, ten, a thousand or a million people.
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
.at the risk of bing censured for being off topic
oh oh I hope the super modern glass house you are building is no where near Southwold..you'd have all the newlands and most of the village protesting on your front lawn..I may even fly over to join them.
John Gregory
I wonder if the only people who really need adverts are advertising agencies and rapacious corporations eager to maximise profit and increase market share. Business speak for institutionalised greed if ever there was.
If tomorrow all TV and Radio advertising was banned, people would still find out about products. Companies that made things well would still develop a good reputation. Culturally advertising spends billions getting people to think of the world in terms of products to be consumed; a sad, soulless, inhumane way to 'speak' to much of the world's population.
People make the argument that adverts are partly about informing people of the latest products, but anyone can find out what's for sale without the need for billions of dollars being spent tweaking people’s fears and desires and conflating them with products. If a human tried to 'communicate' with me in a similar manner I would be very suspicious of them.
In a way advertising agencies are like Mafia thugs providing 'security' for local businesses. 'Pay us and we will protect you from the other gangsters!' Translated: "Pay us for a million dollar ad campaign or watch your profits get damaged by other companies using ad agencies."
"The Nag factor, a marketing study that evaluated the effect of nagging, was designed to teach children how to nag more effectively.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi63rXnuWbw
We would do well to remember that corporations who pay billions of dollars every year on advertising are themselves undemocratic institutions who have a legal responsibility to place profit above all other considerations. The repeatedly documented negative effect of corporations on democracies around the world has been nothing short of catastrophic.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
companies are not democratic inside. it was never our intentions to make them to be. you are free to cooperate with a company. they have no means to force you. that's why they can operate freely, within the boundaries of the rules of the game. on the contrary, the state can force you, and has legal monopoly. that's why we need democratic control over it. however, in a symbolic sense, capitalism is more democratic. you don't even need to convince anyone about a product being bad. you simply don't buy it.
one major element of capitalism is competition. if ads do work, and do increase sales, it is impossible to skip it. but why does it work? you say you would be suspicious. but it happens, and people indeed buy their products. so it seems ads are not suspicious to the majority? anyway, you have problems not with ads or advertising companies, but people it seems. people who fall for the obvious lies, like "intelligent molecule" and "38% more shiny hair" and such. education of people is what you want.
Michael White
Krisztián Pintér 200+
however, i highly doubt that being informative, entertaining, funny, creative, original or anything of the sort is a moral necessity. i mean, come on, how many of you are? not being original or funny is perfectly acceptable behavior. you don't like it, don't watch it.
Debra Smith 200+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_using_our_practical_wisdom.html
and also pull out of the box the stock answer to all such "it is this or that" kind of question: sometimes this, sometimes that.
Christophe Cop 500+
Does doing your job release you from asking moral questions?
That said: hiding behind "I only did my job"... is a way to fragment yourself and you allow to withhold your moral judgement...
Yes, an ad-creator should wory about what he is promoting, how he is promoting it and whether it needs promotion in the first place...
But then again, if you value your income more than your morals... i'm a mere mortal too
Krisztián Pintér 200+
the question is whether your work per se (!) violates ethics. manufacturing a gun is not such an activity, since a gun can be used for defense.
question: what kind of ethical rule is violated if i make a TV ad that has not much information in it, it is not original, it is in-your-face, it is pushy? what kind of ethical rule is violated if my ad is about a product that is perfectly legal, many people wants it and buys it regularly?
behind these arguments, i always see how people want to force their values onto others. in my moral code, selling cigarettes with lifestyle is perfectly acceptable.
Christophe Cop 500+
I agree
James Walker 30+
Haha! Actually my business partner in a past enterprise saw numbers in patterned carpets etc, and when he thought of a big number it had a distinct coloured shape that came into his head. Which is quite funny, because our business was all about econometrics, so lots and lots of big numbers!!!!
Debra Smith 200+
That is an interesting story!
Thomas Pisarchick 10+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
One never knows where a Ted Conversation will lead and this exploration in response to your question has been fruitful and edifying..who'd have known?
I happened to run accross this wonderful quote about advertsing that I wanted to share with all who have invested here in developing this conversation and bringing out its many ideas and insights
“The television commercial is not at all about the character of products to be consumed. It is about the character of the consumers of products. Images of movie stars and famous athletes, of serene lakes and macho fishing trips, of elegant dinners and romantic interludes, of happy families packing their station wagons for a picnic in the country–these tell nothing about the product being sold. But they tell everything about the fears, fancies and dreams of those who might buy them. What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer” (Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, 128)
For me, .this quote reframes a lot of what has already been said here and speaks further to the Ted Talk on the Filter Bubble ( and I think as well to may other major themes here at Ted) It says that in a way when we look at commercials we are looking at ourselves..a mirror is being held up and it is us in that mirror. It isn't calling us to that or celebrating that. We are that. That is us. So, if we want commercials to show a different us..to celebrate different values..we..the majority.. we.the community that has been much debated here... have to be that other thing we want commercials to be..commercials don't lead us there..they show us where we already are
..We can though ask them to show us at our best. and where possible, encourage our best, celebrate our best
Krisztián Pintér 200+
maybe those who want advertisements to be more intelligent or entertaining, are trying to make someone else do what they think is important? maybe it is the old routine: i want this and this, so someone else should make it! i'm not going to help, i'm not going to pay for it, i don't even know how, but i appoint someone else to make it happen, so i can sit back.
we want more charity? make big corporations do that! make the government do that! they have responsibility! i'm just a humble pedestrian down here, it is not my task!
we want more intelligent ads? big corporations should do it! if not, government must make them do it! let's regulate ads, so they can't be too persuasive, too loud, too vague, too much relying on imagery. we have to squeeze out some fun or value from them! so we can watch TV and eat popcorn.
we all agree that someone else must fix the world. it explains a lot about why the world needs fixing in the first place.
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
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Debra Smith 200+
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Debra Smith 200+
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Debra Smith 200+
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
scary. that we have done tha to our children alfreday by the age of 4 or 5..sad
and how do you see these two links related to this conversation. I am not getting it..