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 !
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