Children alive today are not going to thank us for the world we are letting happen. That’s what I thought when I opened the newspaper about two weeks ago. David Mitchell (of Peepshow fame) published a column about a company called Dubit Insider which pays children to punt its client’s brands to each other during playtime. Children are urged to make notes in their own words: “Make sure it doesn’t sound too rehearsed. Don’t start a chat about the project — it’s best to look for natural opportunities to drop it into conversation”. This freaked the bejeezus out of me. English kids are scary enough as it is, without them becoming neo-liberal Chucky’s while still on the roundabout.
It reminded me of two other stories: one about a controversial move to allow product placement in British children’s television which could lead to plots revolving around products and make ads impossible to detect; and Nestle’s moves to improve it abysmal image, including having KitKat certified FairTrade thereby tarnishing one of the few attempts at ethical commerce.
It also brought back memories of a job I did as an undergrad promoting alcohol in bottlestores. At the training session run by the company that hires out young girls to be ‘activators’ for corporate clients we were told that our job existed because consumers were getting whily to the ploys of TV advertising. Fortunately some marketers had done research into what really impelled people to buy: the advice of their friends. They’d worked out that if we smiled, looked people in the eye and engaged them a familiar fashion we’d have a similar effect.
I know it is in our power to see through it, and we aren’t all agencyless victims of corporate conspiracies… but advertising works, doesn’t it? These days its banal to remark upon it — so nineties, so the-media-made-me-anorexic — but when stories like these come out of the woodwork there’s genuine cause for a shiver.
Globally xenophobia seemingly thrives on fears that outsiders will take your job and your whimin. But advertising wants your income, your leisure time, your insecurites, your fears, your self-control, your trust in familiar people and your progeny — and none of us complain. Apparently it is justifiable for business to do anything, even if it means sacrificing questing hobbits to Lord Sauron, to boost sales. (SplashProof altar mats only R9.99 at MrPriceHome!)
And I know we’re all thinking, “It could be worse”. And it could be. “This is one of those odd news stories,” Mitchell wrote, “where you feel you’re supposed to baulk at the new low corporations have sunk to but don’t because you’re surprised they’ve only just sunk to it”. We could have UN officials blinged-out in brands, or microchips shouting out jingles everywhere (a la Moxyland). But at what point does society actually put its foot down and say, tell advertising to cuss off?
What is to stop this Dubit Insider stuff from happening in SA? How many children would turn down extra pocket money to buy nik-naks and chappies ( or schoolfees and taxifare) to drop lines about the new flavour of steri-stumpi? Beneficial as this might be to indviduals, the collective result would be perverse.
The problem with complaining about the commodification of everything is you end up sounding like some fundamentalist freegan. This isn’t about demonising trade. I love a lot of the things that advertising makes possible — newspapers, websites, big events. But advertising is also linked to bigger problems. It is often said that the main obstacle to cutting emmissions (or stopping habitat loss or making trade Fair) is impossible because people will always vehemently resists the attrition of their standards of living — and everyone who doesn’t have a Western lifestyle wants one. Yet a huge amount of effort goes into creating this natural and inevitable desire to consume.
So riddle me this, savvy fellow consumers (but citizens, parents, and inheritors of the future foremost) what would we lose if advertising was restricting to the bare minimum? Does what we love about global capitalism really require the invasion of our public spaces and social interactions? Could we limit ‘luxury’ consumption if we took away its drivers?
I find television advertising extremely invasive. And completely mystifying. Why on earth does DSTV want to annoy me so much by cutting into what I’m watching just to tell me I should be watching it? They mainly advertise DSTV during the breaks – has it not occurred to them that I might already subscribe? And if it’s not DSTV it’s those endless Glomail or whatever adverts telling me ‘and that’s not all!’….
Or what about watching rugby and the field is obliterated by huge coloured adverts all over it? If Discovery or Vodacom or MTN must make huge profits out of me to splurge on advertising why doesn’t Discovery sponser hospitals, Vodacom communication facilities, or something useful? I love sport, but I’m beginning to feel that if a sport can’t stand on its own two feet, well, it should fall. I’m tired of being held to ransom by advertising – it’s an invasion of my privacy.
“what would we lose…?” Probably our jobs and income. Look at all the advertising on this site, Could it exist without it? Personally, I hate it. Carte Blanche screened a program, maybe last year, about the how the marketing companies use children to find out how to sell their products better. They came up with the “nag factor” which was how many time a child has to nag their parents before the parents give in and buy the product! Scarier was the developement of Baby TV so that mothers could just put their babies in front of it and do their home cleaning etc. Talk about preconditioning. The American marketers are criminal and very successful also.
What would constitute a bare minimum of advertising?
What would constitute advertising?
Until there is more detail I am reluctant to say whether I agree or not.
How I miss the days when companies (I will refrain from naming them) used to give us T-shirts for free just because it had the company name on it. Today these T-shirts cost 5 times the price of a normal T-shirt.
Why do we fall for this? I like this quote: “You don’t have to be better than anyone else, just better than yesterday”, author not known. One can now buy executive clothing fit for boardrooms which have the brand logo embroidered – the clothing is really beautiful and of good quality for which I will gladly pay more, but I will not pay to advertise what I have no stake in. Why don’t other people feel the same? There must be something wrong with me…
Norman Douglas apparently said: “You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements”
I haven’t really thought about our adverts and the “ideals” they represent, but I wonder what tourists of the World Cup will think of SA given its advertisement content… ?
This is a thought provoking article. You provide another side to a growing controversy which is very dear to me.
On the one side we have Western consumerism with its supporters: marketing/advertising agencies, the packaging industry, lifestyle magazines, image/beauty consultants, the fashion industry, etc. etc. They all advocate one thing: you are incomplete and unable to compete and survive without their product, i.e. you need to spend. It is good to spend, it keeps the economy healthy, it creates jobs, this is good.
Anyone remember the sci fi horrors about subliminal advertising? This new form of advertising sounds even more incidious because it operates so innocently. If you like it, why not tell your friends about it? We’ll make it worth your while! Don’t worry, I am getting the goosebumps and the funny tummy feeling, but I’ve had them for a while now.
The first such feeling arrived when I realised that one can now aquire “friends” by clicking on an internet site. This new way of advertising is simply a natural progression of the modern society we find ourselves in. Like getting an sms from your offspring to ask when supper will be ready… from her bedroom…
While the whole concept of Freeganism (yech!) is as offputting to me as green activists who becomes so obnoxious that they actually cause people to become anti-environment, they do have the essence of it. (cont’d)
New ad strategies, like product placement, are a response to savvier and more discerning consumers. I’m surprised that you find this shocking. Ads are in the business of “duping” us into buying certain products and services. It’s what they do. All told, they’re just driving the great wheel of commerce forward.
We need not fear innovation.
It is everyone’s right to tell others that they have something to sell. The “wrong” starts when one is coerced into buying something one do not really need or want. All is fair in love and war? No, not really, not when you are not even aware that you are being attacked. Dubit Insider makes it sounds so innocent: “started by teenagers”. I thought that there were laws against child labour in Britain? I also thought that environmental laws have improved to the point where they forbid noise and aesthetic pollution? How about adding mind pollution? Advertising contravenes the first two laws anyway. I have my view of the mountain obscured by billboards about products I don’t want or need.
So, while I do not advocate fishing for supper in the bin behind the supermarket (yech!), I do feel that if we are being attacked on a psychological level, we ought to have the democratic right to fight back psychologically. My friends and I have been doing so for a while. How? We compete to see who can buy the least and who can make do with the least. The less you own, the stronger you are. Don’t need? Don’t get! It is just a change in mindset. Even some teenagers have joined. Those are the one’s who stand out from the crowd by wearing owner designed/made clothes with no logos and who haven’t altered their natural appearance, thus revelling in being original individuals.
The reason why you are afraid to criticise advertising, is the reason why society is incapable of challenging the corruption of advertising.
Virtually all advertising is actually theft. It adds cost to the product without adding value or promoting market share. It’s a scam which damages the social environment at the same time.
And, guess what, once upon a time there were pop concerts which weren’t sponsored and newspapers which depended on sales rather than advertising.
Yes, yes and yes.
Now would that be considered child labour in SA. It may not be physical labour but SA law bans the employemnt of children.
Super interesting, thanks.
Nice article, but I don’t think there’s anything fundamentalist about freeganism (which is in my mind primarily a powerfully enacted, highly effective refusal of consumer culture and excess.)
There are also many other ways of producing media, big events, etc. outside of the free market / neoliberal ‘trade’ model. Crowdsourcing comes to mind, as do various gift economy / mutual aid type models.
To accept the economic model on which your notion of ‘trade’ is based is, unfortunately, to accept its unfortunate but entirely unavoidable (regardless of the kinds of regulation you imply) symptoms…like increasingly insidious forms of marketing.
That said, check out Reverent Billy’s Church of Life After Shopping (www.revbilly.com) – an awesomely funny take on consumerism
They’ve been advertising to kids through the kids’ programmes for years, and not just green Smarties. Do mums care about green Smarties? Never! Why do you think kids eat chips and burgers, but no veg and fruit? Who do you think first begged for TVs and computers? Why is MixIt a kid phenomenon? No, not just the price…but the fact that kids know no limits.
Teacher’s pets believe every thing teachers say but not a word mum has taught. I used to grind my teeth when I heard: ‘But Miss Jones says,’.
Why are our kids so materialistic? Mine said that the friend had a computer and a TV in his room. Who do you think put the idea there? The friend!
You’ve come in on the tail end of a bad dream and it sounds as though you still haven’t got kids. Good luck! These things have been going on for decades, they just have a brand now.
For a real eye-opener, read the novel “Popco” by a young author named Scarlett Thomas (her real name!). The combination of unscrupulous advertisers and manic cyber marketers is driving the de-humanisation of our societies in ways we are only just now beginning to fathom. Prepare yourselves for ‘future shock’ to the power of 10. “Popco” was bang on target prophetic and Simone’s post today is a wake up call.
Sorry to disturb your ranting, advertising does not make us buy what we do not want/need it merely persuades us to buy a certain product and not others once we have the urge to buy,you will all shout and scream, call me names but that is the truth.
What makes us want to buy what we dont want; that is a sociological study at least 50 pages long and advertising will feature in possibly half a page of the study.
Speak to the advertising industry before writing nonsense.
Brent
@the creator – “once upon a time there were pop concerts which weren’t sponsored and newspapers which depended on sales rather than advertising.”
Yes, yes and YES.
And, once upon a time people lived without any of the modcons like cellphone and TV and were actually much happier. Families don’t interact anymore, is it any wonder they are falling apart? The popular press encourages this, that way dad or mom don’t get the chance to correct the rubbish they teach. It is time to take our children’s education away from those who sell things and don’t have their best interest at heart.
HumanNature- I felt the same until it dawned on me that everytime I take my car out of the garage I advertise the brand wherever I go. Embroidered logo on chest, badge on bonnet\boot, what’s the diffrence? They get us in the end.
what a terribly sad state of affairs
All one has to do is steadfastly refuse to buy products that have their logos pasted all over.If that doesn’t help send them a bill for ad space.That should get the message across.
Advertising is the bedrock upon which the capitalist market exists. Take away advertising and everyone would be poorer.
I miss the days when cigarette brands advertised, not because I’m a smoker, but because their ads were the most exciting and their money sponsored so many activities.
It was a freer world we lived in then. Now we live in an over-regulated PC culture with only a semblance of freedom.
It’s not advertising that causes problems, it’s the increasing amount of government interference in our lives.
We live in the era of the “you can’t do this, you can’t do that” PC attitude.
I can’t wait for it to get burnt down.
There may be good news after all. Some years ago on this TV programme where young children are asked questions and the participants must guess whether they know the answer or not (can’t remember the name of the programme), the kids were asked whether they beleived TV ads in general. A full 75% of the kids said no, they didn’t. Hopefully this extends to other forms of advertising as well? Not so stupid after all these kids!
Great blog Charismatic Metaforum! As a parent I can attest to the fact that the ‘nag factor’ is pretty effective – for a while. Then you learn to say, “NO means NO!!”, and, amazingly if you look your kids in the eye, dont smile, and say it in a non-familiar way, they get it. And its a good way to insidiously install an internalised superego around manipulative consumerism. I still fantasize that my grown-up kids see through florid advertising and hear themselves saying “Advertisers stoop to new lows, no-one surprised!”.
Here is a measure to mitigate the effect of television advertising on your kids: THROW THE DAMNED TELEVISION AWAY.