TOO COLD, TOO CLEAN

Size counts : small WAS beautiful

* We have previously stated that advertising, even at its most modest (fliers, posters) can be effective in calling on our attention, in informing us, while at its most sophisticated, it can reach the creative heights of high-quality cinema (see the classic G.B. Dunlop tyres ad or certain perfume or jeans commercials in Europe, in effect shot by film-makers like Ridley Scott or Michel Gondry)

* Whether or not these expensive, spectacular commercials are effective at the pointy end, we are not often told, unless a huge success (one campaign for Sloggi in France), for the information is likely to be considered too sensitive to be revealed (remember, advertising investment is a 50% success, but which 50% ??)

* If it is a given from the beginning that the role of advertising has always been to show in the best light, inform on and persuade in favour of a, product, brand, or service, the ethical and ecological situation has progressively deteriorated since the advent of mass television in the West. Stress on the 'mass'.

* Why ? as the French President would interject. To explain, I would reply here by a rural analogy. It concerns a certain British cheesemaker, who for generations had produced the same successful, good-tasting cheese in a small backyard dairy. He one day decided to expand his business to reach a wider market, putting up a far larger building to house the operation. Everything was ready and he set about producing his traditional cheese using the same old recipe in his modern premises. The cheese was abominable. It took him 6 months and special consultants to find out why. The reason was that his new premises were too cold, too big and in a sense, too clean, the bacterial cultures not being able to develop in the atmosphere to give taste and character to the cheese

* Today, advertising in the West, which is where I live, is indeed becoming like the factory in the example above, too cold and too clean (techno-driven, cynical, manipulative), too big (unpleasantly omnipresent, sponsor-mad) and like the tasteless cheese, far too readily accepted in its methods by the general public. Here we have a problem

* Let us not forget that this same general public is certainly not immune to the advertising discourse, for, firstly, its message is THERE in front of everyone and secondly in the message there will often remain at leasta modicum of information, plus some nice colours or a pretty face to look at. For we live in the West in a very visual universe...

* The problematic clearly equates to a dearth of pedagogy : citizens in our consumer society are not taught from an early age how their visual world is organised and how its codes function from medium to medium. Though per day we view quite passively hundreds of commercial messages (in the USA, 3000),
we are not consciously AWARE of the ongoing manipulation

* Most admit to WHY advertising resorts to manipulation, but underrate its importance. However, what people do not think about is HOW the manipulation is happening, for 95% of them have not been taught at school to ANALYSE, to DECRYPT a commercial message, written or audio-visual, and nor have their teachers ! On the other hand, of course, advertisers are all for the status quo, wonder why ?

* The new (for France) LCD hidden-camera screens (Paris Etoile metro station) mentioned in the previous blog, and which are to invade our public space by the hundred, are a good example of orwellian Big-Brother technology exploited by witless, cynical advertisers, in conjunction with trusted bodies like the RATP and the SNCF (French transport authorities) and sheep-like citizens...

* Unless of course this iniquitous development is being done in the name of the war against terror...solution : just film them !! If we are not careful, the large screens installed in citizens' rooms in the fiction film '1984' will one day become reality. In the name of security, shut up, consume and we are watching you if you don't...le meilleur des mondes pour nos enfants, awesome concept !

BEWARE THE SMILING SOFTWARE (WO)MAN

Where are you Bertold ?


To sum up in point form what we have said thus far about advertising :

* Historically-speaking, the medium of advertising, in terms of dissemination, has shown a logical development according to the technologies available at the time, from BC. Egyptian to AD. 21st century American (via papyrus, paper, wood, radio-waves, TV, through the Internet...)

* Some advertising (10%) is brilliant, creative, clever, persuasive and even ...ethical, but rarely green !

* Advertising is useful now and again. As time goes on, it has tended to become less so, as it may even cancel itself out with overkill (perfume ads in France), contradict itself, create disbelief or numbness in the consumer-to-be or even cross the ethical yellow line

* So in terms of volume/efficacy, the less the merrier

* Arguably though, to shock or provoke the viewer/passer-by however, can be seen by the cynical advertiser as a positive step toward consumer brand recognition

* Advertising does work half of the time, or used to (the time when an advertiser wondered on "which half ?"), so in the mad scramble to communicate and to thus leave no downtime, no space unexploited, no slot unpurchased, the notion of efficacy flies out the proverbial window, leaving mass discontentment and frustration in the public with the resulting overkill

* As advertising (along with its cousins, marketing and promotion - see in this respect the promotional ideas of Edward Bernays in the U.S.A of the 1920s to push smoking in women) became more sohisticated, it became more manipulative, using concepts such as psychoanalysis, subliminal messages and motivational research

* Regulations to keep it honest have been devised in most developed countries, either by the profession or by the State. In volume terms today, there are obviously time restrictions on radio and television advertising, although advertisers attempt to get around such restrictions in one medium by multiplying the message in different media, by spin-off products, product placement, sponsoring or even creating programmes around their advertising (TV soaps)

* Apart from exaggerated claims, advertisers use and re-use the old stand-bys of OMISSION of information, ILLEGIBLE SMALL PRINT on posters or packets, REPETITION of information, SATURATION of an outlet (tennis matches sponsored by ONE advertiser), FALSE INFORMATION (advertorials in the press), FREE SAMPLES (the French cycling Tour de France), SPAM, and many more

* In recent times however, famous clothes firms have persuaded people - especially in brand-crazy France - not only to BUY their brand, but to WEAR, FOR FREE, THE BRAND LOGO on the clothing ! Walking, unpaid, sandwich-boards ! People will sneer at you here if your clothes are unbranded. Fortiche ! (the French consumer, not...)

* Advertisers continue to seek out fresh spots and slots for their advertising : supermarket trolleys, escalators, whole buses/trains, toilets, school textbooks (U.S.A), sports clothing for soccer clubs, skin adverts (U.S.A, G.B), internet chats, forums and social networking sites (Facebook...) and 'pre-ads' attached to videos (to see the video, you have to watch the ad first)...

* NEW DEVELOPMENT : today in France there is an attempt by Metrobus, a subsidiary of Publicis, to use a new form of advertising based on hi-tech software, where the eyeballs of passers-by in the Paris Etoile metro station who look at an advertising screen will be tracked by a camera hidden in the advertising board to ascertain what he or she is looking at in the screened ad (the bottle of perfume ? the woman ?) and also to stock and sell information about the uninformed 'victims'. So far, the 'advertising watchdog', the CNIL has said nothing...

* These 'interactive' advertising boards are few and far between so far, but hundreds are planned for France. So 'Minority Report' was prophetic in its fascistic use of advertising against people who, from unsuspecting and uninformed (today in France) accepted the intrusive technology (in the U.S.A in the film). Eyeball-tracking technology again...

* I have inserted a link to a French anti-advertising portal in the title of this blog for more information in French , plus (Google permitting) a photo of the rather ordinary board.

* It is high time for those of us in education, students and teachers, to stop this unacceptable form of communicating an advertising message. Otherwise, it will be too late.

* The smiling adware-technocrat : "But we must keep up to date", "But they're doing this in the States", "But change is good, think Obama" "If we don't, they will!" "Do you want to regress to cavemen ?" - the excuses will abound, nevertheless, remember :
- the smiling car salesman (Tricky Dick, 1960s),
- the smiling software engineer (circa 2000)
- Now, the arrogant techno-adman who would code his own grandmother into fascism in two quick lines !!