Hornet's Nest
Or maybe this should be entitled, "Advertising a Hornet's Nest." Possibly a Pandora's Box reference might fit, but that would be subject to a ton of misinterpretation [1].
Ah, that's it! MISINTERPRETATION, that's the ticket.
No, we'll just stick with the original. Hornet's Nest, a thing that gets some serious buzz. An item one should approach with due care and concern, fully cognizant of the associated peril.
Some background: The root cause and stimulus that prompted the In Defense of Advertising essay, was a general damning of Advertising As The Cause Of All Things Evil. This was delivered to me (and others) as part of a larger rant about All Things Wrong In Society Today.
Some of the rant made sense. Yes, there is advertising that seems to treat the target as though it has the brainpower of a flea. Yes, there are ads which extol the virtues of that which might strike some as crass and crude. Yet others as revoltingly shallow. And, sure, some advertising is just plain annoying. No argument with that.
My concern was with the broad-stroke damning of all people involved in advertising. And further, the lack of credit or acknowledgement of the hard work, creativity, and support efforts that are so much a part of the advertising world. Also nagging at me was the outright dismissal of all people connected to advertising as leeches, perpetrators of evil, and worthless members of society.
This rant stuck with me for quite some time. It took awhile to focus on what exactly caused the consternation. Then it became clear. And it stemmed from some annoying experiences Iíd had when I was in the broadcasting industry.
Part of my life in broadcasting was as a Programmer. I would chuckle, and tell people that everyone I knew was a better programmer than I was Ö just ask them! Everyone seemed to have a programming tip, or a secret, a concept or great and strikingly new, canít-miss idea. Many would decry the short playlists, the endless barrage of commercials, the lousy this or thatÖabout stations they were incredibly well-versed on. Gee, if they dislike it so much why do they listen so much that they are experts on program content? HmmÖ
A truism of broadcasting is that your biggest fans are your harshest critics. This is true in other areas, as well, certainly in most forms of media.
My broadcast consulting firm offered expertise in programming, marketing, promotion, sales, and ratings analysis, for numerous stations. We conducted studies on what to program, how much it would cost to successfully launch a format change, what revenues could be forecast based on the investment in a programming and marketing change, things like that. We conducted focus groups, we created financial models, we designed research to determine feasibility of programming and sales initiatives.
Some of this might just cast us as those evil people who control media and attempt to control the average Joe and Jane. The reality is just the opposite. If the research showed that Jane and Joe wouldnít enjoy the programming product, or too few Joes and Janes would like itÖor that the amount of Joes and Janes the ratings would report would not be sufficient enough to generate proper sales revenues, then the idea would be abandoned.
Does that mean that some creative concepts went by the wayside? No, not at all. It means that in the commercial world, some ideas are not strong enough to compete, or to generate the sort of revenues required to remain viable in the marketplace.
Those who developed some of those abandoned ideas can now stream them on the web, and offer the concept to a wider prospective audience. A new world has opened up. And new commercial viabilities are upon us.
In my essay I think I may have gone too far when I referred to opting out of our economic system, i.e., ìAnd whatís wrong with any of that? Well, nothing, actually, unless you choose to live under a different economic system [2] than the one we have here. And if thatís the case, you can take YOUR GREAT THING with you, donít let the screen door hit your butt on the way out.î
This was misinterpreted by a number of those who have written to me with comments, as well as in some blogs in which the authors have chosen to disagree or take issue with some or all of the essay.
What often occured when I was a broadcaster was this: people would whine and moan about ads, complain about the ones that annoyed them, bemoan the overabundance of them, how often they'd be repeated, and so on and so forth. But every time someone had a product idea, the next question seemed to pop up just after the "gee, don't commercials suck?!" line of discussion.
Hey, they'd ask, what's the best way to advertise my great idea?
I would always bite my tongue and not give the knee-jerk, arrogant reponse that would pop into my head: "Oh, you want to join the dark side, the evil forces, the bad people? You want to become one of those dreaded and hated, er, day I say it..... advertisers????!!!!????!!!
My point is this: there are too many people all too willing to join the anti-advertising bandwagon. They cry out how it sucks and is a bad thing and causes Cancer, Obesity, and Anorexia.
But as soon as they have a something to sell, they are quick to cross over to the other side, and become a member of the enemy.
I never viewed advertising as an enemy. Sometimes it can be a necessary evil, even a burden. Often it can be annoying.
But it isn't the core or the cause of "what's wrong in the world."
Surely the people who work in the ad industry cannot all be part of some subversive plot designed to ruin life as we know it.
There's this Radio Blog with a very striking design, and some interresting and entertaining content: Jonathon Delacour Unplugged [3]. Jonathan apparently was underwhelemed by my essay, and appreciated and quoted The Happy Tutor's response [4] (blog: Wealth Bondage) in his blog today [5].
Talk about advertising and it opens a hornet's nest. Those hornets and wasps mean no harm. But get up where they live, bother them, and out come the stingers. There's an analogy here, but it escapes me.
I remain rather surprised by the various positive and negative takes on the essay.
Yet still I defend advertising, and the people working in the field. But no, I am not a shill for ads (good or bad) nor am I furthering the idea that the foundation of our republic is fortified or fundamentally more sound as a result of the existence of advertising.
This is like being a programmer - everyone can do it better than I can. Must be the same when one discusses the merits of advertising and ad-industry people...everyone seems to know more about this, so I will bow out of the conversation.
At least until I get so riled up I just have to post something again!