ADVERTISING IS THE BOMB
Many years ago I almost took a job with an ad agency (that was before I even considered going to law school.) I have never regretted deciding against it, but now I have a whole new reason to rejoice: the infamous Boston Brite-Lite Hoax. Lots of other people are using the incident to decry the loss of America's sense of humor since 9/11 (see http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020807R.shtml for instance), but where is our pity for the poor advertisers?
Over the past thirty years or so, there have been fewer and fewer ways to attract public attention to advertising. It is now taken for granted that most television commercials are being used primarily as an opportunity for snack or bathroom breaks or some other form of multi-tasking, and that billboards are being just plain ignored. On-line ads attract whole new varieties of retaliatory software previously used only to block viruses and worms. People are actually willing to pay to avoid being exposed to advertising.
In response, advertisers have looked for new locations for their wares, like elevators and washroom stalls. And those who use such space merely develop new ways to ignore their surroundings.
So these days the only way to attract public attention is through what in other contexts is more solemnly called performance art--hoaxes. The Boston police have given them a pretty hard time for it, but no matter--it will happen again. The advertisers will just factor in the cost of legal representation and pump up their budgets a bit. After the first year or so of ad hoaxes, the public will find their own new mechanism for tuning them out, and the arms race will escalate yet again.
Because the advertising industry, and the economy that rests on it, can't figure out any other way to operate in the light of the incontrovertible and obvious fact that most people hate advertising and will do almost anything to avoid having to attend to it. Virtually all of our mass media depend on advertising. So do organized sports. So, increasingly, does education (did you see the story about a high school kid who got suspended for wearing a "Coke" t-shirt in a school that had an exclusive contract with Pepsi?) And then there's the continuing arms race between those who advertise on movies and tv programs, and the viewers who tape the programs and "zap" the ads.
At some level, I think the advertisers are motivated by a puritanical urge to make media consumers pay for their pleasures by doing something they hate. The increasing number of people who resist are seen as free-loaders, the same sort of people who want to drink without getting hangovers, or have sex without getting pregnant.
What worries me is the escalation. On one hand, people trying to resist advertising often do it by blocking out all kinds of external stimuli, including some very useful ones. And on the other hand, trying to overcome this resistance can lead the advertisers to some really disruptive tactics. If Brite-Lite can't get the consumer's attention with fake bombs, are real bombs the next step?
Over the past thirty years or so, there have been fewer and fewer ways to attract public attention to advertising. It is now taken for granted that most television commercials are being used primarily as an opportunity for snack or bathroom breaks or some other form of multi-tasking, and that billboards are being just plain ignored. On-line ads attract whole new varieties of retaliatory software previously used only to block viruses and worms. People are actually willing to pay to avoid being exposed to advertising.
In response, advertisers have looked for new locations for their wares, like elevators and washroom stalls. And those who use such space merely develop new ways to ignore their surroundings.
So these days the only way to attract public attention is through what in other contexts is more solemnly called performance art--hoaxes. The Boston police have given them a pretty hard time for it, but no matter--it will happen again. The advertisers will just factor in the cost of legal representation and pump up their budgets a bit. After the first year or so of ad hoaxes, the public will find their own new mechanism for tuning them out, and the arms race will escalate yet again.
Because the advertising industry, and the economy that rests on it, can't figure out any other way to operate in the light of the incontrovertible and obvious fact that most people hate advertising and will do almost anything to avoid having to attend to it. Virtually all of our mass media depend on advertising. So do organized sports. So, increasingly, does education (did you see the story about a high school kid who got suspended for wearing a "Coke" t-shirt in a school that had an exclusive contract with Pepsi?) And then there's the continuing arms race between those who advertise on movies and tv programs, and the viewers who tape the programs and "zap" the ads.
At some level, I think the advertisers are motivated by a puritanical urge to make media consumers pay for their pleasures by doing something they hate. The increasing number of people who resist are seen as free-loaders, the same sort of people who want to drink without getting hangovers, or have sex without getting pregnant.
What worries me is the escalation. On one hand, people trying to resist advertising often do it by blocking out all kinds of external stimuli, including some very useful ones. And on the other hand, trying to overcome this resistance can lead the advertisers to some really disruptive tactics. If Brite-Lite can't get the consumer's attention with fake bombs, are real bombs the next step?
posted by WiredSisters at 10:43 AM
0 comments
