Many years
ago as part of a school project, I chose to investigate the world of
Advertising from a sociological, economical and historical perspective. It was
interesting. It was so interesting that I chose to take a work experience opportunity
in a small Advertising firm in that same year. Advertising, like everything
really, has its perils and holds the golden good well too. It’s true that I’m
old enough to admit that the internet barely did exist which was almost lucky
for it brought me out of the suburbs and into the big smoke to look through microfiche
in the State Library. It was in a basement holding all of that beautiful
history, newspaper articles and advertisements and journals. I was about 17
years old or so and it was a chance to time travel through the ages for free
and history is a beautiful capsule of warmth for me because as it is gone
already, it can’t actually run away anywhere and it can teach us about moving
forwards too. I started to learn about mind control and about freedom too. I
started to see how we might sway people to new thoughts and ideas that are
liberating or how we might persuade the masses they aren’t at all good enough
and must become consumers or fear imminent failure. It was a coming of age in
some ways, realising I could slip in and out of the Truman Show, sometimes by
choice or sometimes through a kind of subliminal force that was very hard to
pull away from, especially as a young woman. It was also pretty bloody hilarious at times, shifting through the changes in style as advertising grew over the ages. 
I presented
a rather idealistic paper to my teacher on the way of the past and the way forwards
complete with some original wartime magazine advertisements my Grandmother sent
me on request in the post. It was idealistic in that I was hankering for a
feeling of wellbeing and acceptance and understanding in advertising when it’s
very hard to actually promote caring with the ulterior motive of sales in the
wings. “Buy this” and “we care” ultimately can translate as “we only care because
you’ll make us richer.” Much then, the result is a very… I’m so hollow kinda feeling.
In my work
experience placement, I spent a good proportion of time in the layout room for
the company’s biggest money spinner, Kmart Catalogues where a nice enough young
man glumly showed me some of the more original forms of lying to the masses in
the form of an early kind of airbrushing program. He explained it was how he
was trained. I also, in the biggest feat or irony, packaged and labelled hundreds
of small saplings for the opening of a new shopping complex in Melbourne Greensborough
while hearing Joni Mitchell call for Big Yellow Taxi all the way through. The
new complex provided new jobs and in smaller way new services and a new Cinema.
I love movies but yes, I also love trees and had a keen interest in the Australian
bush all my life. I was beginning to understand the push and pull of life on
Earth and as a young person, one can feel a little small in that muddle. I did
feel small. I did have some funny and joyful moments with the people I worked
with. We laughed, the Graphic Designer and I, with each other about our
powerless place in a boxed up world. I went on a photo shoot and got a makeup
tutorial from a leggy model who assured me my breasts would probably grow bigger
but who also was studying Law in her off days and chatted with a sweet “older”
woman in her 40s (my age now, lol) about nurseries and nature as we tied ribbons
around free gifts. From memory, in amongst it, there was also an ad campaign
they were doing for “Life Be in It”, a kind of initiative to minimise
depression and unhealthy lifestyle choices.
The truth
is, then, there were fewer opportunities to advertise, now all of us get the
opportunity to be advertisers if we really want to be and we see advertising in
almost everything we engage in via the internet. People have learnt to become
living breathing walking advertisements in amongst networks that were originally
set up for social engagement and I believe initially so that people could
connect and feel loved. I honestly believe in Zuckerberg’s defence he wanted
people to know each other and be included. Money and size and darker threads
make a way into any platform in which people can be swayed. It’s happened for
years via the media, churches, advertising, politics, it’s always been an
interconnected Webb, the Webb is just denser and bigger now and it’s more
difficult to keep on ethical watch on something so entirely huge.
Blogging is
another example. In its early inception it was a beautiful wall of opportunity
for anyone to be a writer and we should get that chance too. It’s never tacky
to have a go at expressing yourself while growing an interest to greater
proficiency and heart. It’s still possible
to connect with other bloggers this way. It’s almost impossible to be seen and
heard on a large scale though if you aren’t preaching to people on how we
should be looking, on what we should be buying and that can lick at the corners
of our souls and cause depression. Often we are provided with very unrealistic
and stuck in time unreasonable and non- affordable commodities and labels and
models chosen who do not necessarily represent a diverse enough gamut of society
in size, shape ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, disability or belief
systems. There has been some movement in these areas, slowly though. Some types
of advertising modalities are now often often aggressively driven into people’s
lives via blogging and social media sites and we can’t even enjoy a news story
without the whole article being yet another advertisement for another person
who is selling something else to us. It
is making people cranky or alienated and at a loss to experience something genuine.
Often terrific causes or people heading up such causes are paired up with
rather un-terrific and completely inappropriate cross promotions and people who
have no interest in such causes that may trick us into a system of spending in
the wrong areas on one hand while learning to care on the other. Consumerism should never
for example be a cross promotion with someone advocating for the environment. It’s
simply not an intelligent marketing choice and lessens the impact of the cause
where it need not do that. There is no point defending people who do that if
you really want to do the very best job you can for this planet.
The most
read blogs are paid endorsements because the sights from which they are
initially launched are actually paid for by big bickies companies. The independent
writer has little hope in that highly capitalist wheel. If it’s not promoted by
a larger label or company, chances are, we don’t get to see it. You really have
to go on a treasure hunt and I would encourage people to keep searching for the
real “truebies” at all costs in music art nature sometimes on the internet if
you can and out there in the big wide world where there’s so much to love that
feels full and free.
We can be
consumers, we can, buy and sell to a point but not every opportunity is a good
time to advertise everything.
Here’s some
ads I do like…
1. This one is for an Environmental Not
for Profit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyL58vlbvgw
2. And this one is for a Life Insurance
Company which isn’t so bad. Though it’s ok to want to follow your dreams and be
known by many, it’s also ok to make change happen in your own beautiful ways
and people should never feel shamed for being the underdog or like the sun
regardless a loyal force towards good in small and steady steps forward.
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