Marketing Means You No Harm
Advertising. The word conjures a twinge of hatred in even the gentlest of hearts. But why does this omnipresent phenomenon leave a bad taste in our mouths? By consulting expert Terry O'Reilly's book The Age of Persuasion, I was able to come up with a reasonable answer.
It all begins (well not really, but we're skipping ahead to the good part. Which you should absolutely do in conversations, but not in novels) in 1893's Chicago World Fair. An entrepreneur by the name of Clark Stanley awed audiences with his live preparation of "Snake Oil" - a cure-all elixir made of boiled rattlesnake. It was of course, nothing of the kind. But consumers did not learn that until 1917 when the US government tested a shipment to discover a mixture of mineral oil, fat, turpentine, camphor, and red pepper. And not a snake in sight.
This (and other similarly fraudulent products) grew the mistrust blossoming in an increasingly cynical population. Additionally, newspapers of the time were being accused on "yellow journalism" - the prioritisation of sensationalism over actual fact (and something with which contemporary audiences are also all too familiar).
The betrayal didn't end there either. As radio become the all the rage, ads quickly jumped onboard. Yet the advertisements of this age were annoying, intrusive, and repetitive and dragged the good name of marketing through the mud.
On top of this less-than-stellar history, the sixties rolled along in a beat-up tie-dye van full of free spirits who rejected the presence of The Man (No, not the man that you're thinking of, with the large hat and briefcase full of turnips...the other one). Various other missteps made by advertisers in this era (such as Campbell's "marblegate") continued to push advertising further and further onto consumers' bad side.
Today, advertising is still haunted by its poor reputation. In a HubSpot research study, it was found that 85% of people have a negative opinion of websites with prominent ads. It seems that many of us feel that ads exist simply to inconvenience us. While it is true that sometimes advertising is that unwanted side dish that comes with your meal of Internet browsing or television watching, the point of ads is not to annoy you into purchasing their product. The point is to convince you, or if nothing else, get the brand name into your stubborn noggin.
But advertising means you no harm. Marketing does not have to be the "Snake Oil" lies, radio's nuisances, or a vehicle for pushing The Man's agenda. It is not James Vicary's subliminal messaging. It is, as said by a famous French painter, "the greatest art form of the 20th century".
Like so many things in life, we fail to see the beauty of advertising. And yes, I find impromptu sales pitches as irksome as the next secret agent, but I am proposing that there is some measure of good in advertising. As long as advertisers realize that creativity, humour, and beauty are the keys to advertising and not repetition, volume, and bragging, advertising does not have to be a bother. There have always been advertising gems that have shaped our culture, beliefs, and maybe just made us laugh.
So why not make the best of marketing? It isn't going away anytime soon.
If you would like examples of art-vertising (as I have very recently decided to dub it), please peruse Entrepreneur's list of the most thought-provoking ads of 2017.
If you would like to learn more about the history and concepts of advertising, please peruse Terry O'Reilly's "The Age of Persuasion" or the CBC podcast "Under the Influence" (created by the self-same Terry O'Reilly).
If you would like to continue on blindly hating marketing, please ignore everything I have just said. I won't be offended (predominantly because I won't know).
- A.M. Ham
