Polemic time again. One facet of advertising which profoundly annoys me (and there are many facets of advertising which profoundly annoy me) are adverts where the advertisers act as if the thing they wish were happening were actually happening. ‘Oh, I wish people were so excited by our new range of loo scrubbers that they held celebratory parties in the street and in years to come related with teary eyes to their grandchildren the magical day when the new Bigger Better Bog Brush bounded into their lives!’ is what I imagine they say in their trendy Soho offices. And so in a masterstroke of public wankery they shoot an advert where people are giving up their first-born children for a chance to own one of their poxy new products.

Don’t get me wrong, passion about what you’re selling is entirely admirable, and it’s right that some pride in your products should come across in an advert; my problem is when advertisers try to shoe-horn in an emotional response to a product where no such response previously existed. It’s not sexy just because you tell me it is.

I won’t reveal which major technology company a while ago sent me an advert for an upcoming developer’s conference on the use of their technologies which had the following strap-line:

Get ready. It’s almost here. The free techie party that everyone talks about and no one misses because hey, you do not want to miss out on this kind of learning and fun!

Wow, that’s some pretty bold claims; ‘no one misses’ it, apparently. It’s a ‘party’ of ‘learning and fun’[1].

Let’s be honest, no one will find a programming conference on Delphi unnamed coding tool fun, unless they’re an imbecile. However, despite the patent lack of fun, many people might yet be interested in attending; on the more visceral end of the scale, those whose livelihoods depend on advance use of these technologies will be very interested to learn of a (free, by the way) conference on how better to use them, on the other hand the basic satisfaction of intellectual curiosity is something which many people actively seek. It’s rather churlish to describe such pursuits as ‘fun’ – is watching the news ‘fun’?; reading a history book?; engaging in a robust debate on religion? No, I would argue, it’s not ‘fun’, but it doesn’t have to be – it’s enough to be intellectually stimulated and emerge from the experience more knowledgable and mentally enriched.

By all means advertise in passionate terms what this conference will provide, but be honest – don’t try to pretend it’s going to be a rip-roaring ride of fun, it’s insulting to the intelligence.

In a similar vein, though with a very different agenda, a few years ago the UK government (I would guess through it’s touchy-feely ‘DirectGov’ money sink nebulous concept – don’t get me started on the execrable  ‘I’d Go Direct Guv’ advert) launched an advertising campaign to convince teenagers that unprotected sex is irresponsible and likely to fuck up your life (which I think few would disagree with). Now they could have chosen a number of approaches to achieve this aim; perhaps they could have used a stern authority figure to proclaim the dangers of ‘going commando into the pink jungle’, or they could have used talking heads of those of their peers who have met with the nasty consequences of ‘riding the Indian train‘ as a shock cautionary tale of the dangers. But no, they made a series of adverts which depicted what the government dearly wished were true; they had a bunch of teenagers acting like unprotected sex was uncool, and you’d be ostracised if you dared go in unsheathed:

Haha, they’ve put him in goal because he didn’t use a condom – it’s funny cos it’s not true[2]. Now while there are a great number of teenagers who do know the dangers of unprotected sex and would always use a condom, they are not who this advert is aimed at. The people it’s aimed at would, by definition, never be having that conversation. Does the government really think that those teenagers will see that advert and think ‘God, that must be what everyone else at school is really thinking, I’d better start using a condom – I don’t want to play in goal!’[3]. Very few people are that stupid or gullible. It’s not cool just because you tell me it is.

Till tomorrow, I hope.

Mark

  1. I’m somehow reminded of the Complaints department of The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation – ‘Share and Enjoy!’ [↩]
  2. There is a joke in there somewhere about David Seamen but I can’t find it at the moment [↩]
  3. Releasing their inner Seamen if you will (found it!). [↩]