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We Are Social - Advertising 2.0

Advertising will destroy the world

Comments:7 Add your comment

Just watch, it's Friday after all:

Update: In light of the comments below, it's probably worth re-capping the Vatican's guidance on the ethics of advertising.

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Published Jul 20 2007, 11:32 AM by Robin Grant

Filed under: ethics, key insights

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Comments

by Bill Britt

July 20, 2007 9:34 AM

Robin, This rant against the evils of advertising was so OTT that I had to double check that it wasn’t a spoof. How can you seriously believe someone who says: “Advertising is one of the major obstacles to the survival of the human species” and that if left unchecked, advertising will lead to “barbarism and savagery” in 70 to 80 years time. What is particularly worrying about the man espousing these views is his lack of understanding about causality. He believe most of the world’s ills are linked to a a single cause – advertising. Personally, I do believe that we in the west consume too much and that isn’t good for the soul or the environment. However, I don’t demonise advertising, it helps people make choices. Even more worrying is that Sut Jhally is a communications professor at the University of Massachusetts. Does he really believe that if someone flipped a switch and turned off advertising that all would be right with the world? No more war, no more poverty. This YouTube trailer is from a Jhally DVD that came out a decade ago, and he is in on the board, along with Naomi Klein, of something called The Media Education Foundation (www.mediaed.org) If today’s four inches of rain (no doubt caused by advertising) isn’t depressing you enough, have a trawl around their website.

by Gordon Macmillan

July 20, 2007 10:41 AM

Shock advertising is the last resort of people with no ideas. Quality and strong ideas is what shines through. Look at the recent VW ad with the Richard Burton voice over reading Dylan Thomas.

by Roy Murphy

July 20, 2007 3:09 PM

worrying? no. i'd file this alongside fred phelps, david icke and the colour purple. then apply a well designed and advertised baseball bat across its no-mark chops. next.

by Rory Sutherland

July 20, 2007 3:17 PM

The idea that advertising might occasionally contribute to the solution has interestingly not occurred to him. Greenpeace, Amnesty and most counter-cultural organisations are advertising funded. I too thought it was a spoof. And why is it fine for him to use shock imagery designed to arouse fear (eg footage of power stations intercut with fuzzy screens) while this same appeal to anxiety would be immoral if used in an ad?

by Samuel Hornsby

July 20, 2007 3:18 PM

My dad told me never to trust anyone with only one eye-brow.

by Chris Arnold

July 23, 2007 12:50 AM

Oh boy, another university lecturer with an 'advertising is evil' rant trying to get publicity and a paid lecture tour. This reminds me of that guy in the 70s who saw sexual images in ice cubes in whisky ads and said we were using subliminal imagery to pervert the minds of drinkers. Trouble was, no one else could see the naked images. I note that he’s using subliminal references to Al Gore’s ‘A Inconvenient Truth’ – smoking factories. His idea the “advertising is a major obstacle to our survival” is as absurd as it is funny. His observation that we are moving from the cognitive to the emotional shows he doesn’t know the history of advertising – brands have always used emotions. And as for that Candies ad – yep it was hard to ignore cause it was crap (excuse the pun given the image of Jenny McCarthy on the loo). Advertising isn’t responsible for the end of the world. It could help save it through ethical messages, which many manufacturers and NGOs are now putting out. Personally, this guy’s video gets my vote for Campaign’s Turkey of the Week.

by Roy Patel

July 27, 2007 4:53 PM

Consumers want to be guided and influenced and advertising does this very well. This is in the form of good and bad ads. This guy is nuts about advertising will destroy the world. As the biggest ad boom currently is Web 2.0 and Social Media and this is being driven by mankind!

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