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28.09.2011

Badvertising?

media society communication critique

During all the years of my work in advertising I always had very ambivalent feelings about it. Part of me loved it for endless possibilities of creative opportunities while bigger part of me hated it for having to act against my political and personal values.

I'm sure many co-workers also experienced similar feelings but decided to stay, as it appears this is one of those "take it or leave it" situations. So i left.

I know now I was wrong - not leaving it but in thinking it can't be changed.

Naive as it may sound, I do believe in advertising that:
- doesn't sell products and it's not profit orientated,
- promotes values, such as solidarity, acceptance, diversity and development of human potential,
-is not competitive but co-operative,
-promotes activism,
-isn't sexist and doesn't abuse stereotypes to attract attention,
-aims to change social reality for better for the benefit of everyone,
-is detached from corporative funding,
-is socially critical and encourages people to critical thinking.

What do you think? Doable?

P.s. This blog seriously needs a "text editor" tool and "save as draft" option :)


Comments

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skndugan

14 years, 6 months

Totally doable, although I am guilty myself of the bad practices, I think this is all very doable and I hope to be able to do this in my career in advertising and even in my school work this year if the opportunity comes up.
inesnin

14 years, 6 months

i think memefest is the right place for it. ;) most of the aspects you mention are surely noncommercial. i think the big challenge is to introduce such principles in commercial advertising. somehow. it is doable!
skndugan

14 years, 6 months

This is a big goal of mine, my school and my career is going to be so commercial. Everything we do. I am slowly trying to introduce these things into my school work this year, and its going well!
oliver

14 years, 6 months

Most of the people working in Advertising have ambivalent feelings about it, so you are not alone. :)

Advertising as it is practiced is in my opinion a medium which' potentials havent been yet fully developed. But the reasons for that are pretty clear, because advertising has a clear main agenda- short term financial profit. Because of that the advertising communication approach, which is marketing based can have only specific effects. And as we know, these effects are in the majority of cases limited and problematic.

The main problem, in my opinion, is that advertising has legitimised it self as the one and only form or communication approach when it comes to solving communication problems in public sphere.

But there are other communication approaches. What we are doing here at Memefest is the research, development and practice of an alternative: Socially responsive communication.

Advertising agencies will not be able to change. At least not a lot. It is important to try to change them but it is also highly important to establish alternative institutions/ practices that work under a different logic.

ps: we are working on a text editor tool and a save draft option for this blog. should be online in the next week. :)
skndugan

14 years, 6 months

I do agree with you Oliver, I have little hope big agencies would ever change because exactly what you say - short term financial profit. But I think its very important for people, such as myself, who will be working with these big agencies one day to be self-critical of my practice, and where I can enforce positive ways of communicating, while using my practice to do so.