my problem with advertising is fairly broad...
Speaking as one who makes a living in this godawful trade, the real problem is around the media as a whole in that, with the dawn of PC and positive discrimination, you've got ads like the Diet Coke ones where it's ok for a bunch of women to ogle a guy, but the other way round would (possibly) have them in court. Or ones that say "my husband's so feckin thick he tried to clean the cooker with cornflakes, the twat - so I told him to use Cif".

The rules are:
1) It's ok to make a white man look thicker than his wife because that can't be sexist/racist/homophobic. Despite the fact that women/non-whites/gays can all be bigoted as hell.

2) You can pitch a TV show where you have a bunch of gay guys telling a straight guy his clothes are shit, but you'd be flogged in the street if you pitched a show where straight guys taught a hideously camp queen how to drive a forklift or blend in with football fans. The only way you can do anything like that is to skew the content so that the people that are doing the "teaching" look like assholes.

3) You'll never see a black cop/soldier/mcdonalds fry-cook being berated by a white captain/sergeant/store manager in a film, unless the white guy is being portrayed as either nasty to everyone EXACTLY EQUALLY, or is a racist. Same goes with homophobia.

4) You'll never see a film in which the "plain jane" slightly chubby girl doesn't suddenly become successful and popular or overcome her thin, blonde, pretty and rich enemy.

The reason is that this cultural influence stems from the US and basically, they'll sue anyone for anything over there...

People criticise adverts for perfumes or cars for being obtuse, but the reality is that if you put out an ad that said "our perfume is nice, it smells like apples", you'd have some burger-munching fuckwit trying to sue because they felt it wasn't "apple-y" enough or because it smelled more of pears and that caused them emotional trauma because their uncle once fingered them in a pear orchard, etc.

Advertisers would love to say "buy a ferrari - it's faster than a Mondeo and really nice to look at", but they can't because they'd either be sued by someone who a) felt it wasn't nice to look at, or b) owned a Mondeo and felt that a Ferrari wasn't faster, etc.

You can't say "Buy Armani, don't dress at Primark - you'll look smarter than a chav in a £3 tracksuit", despite the obvious truth of it because either Primark or a £3-tracksuit-wearing chancer will see you end up in court.

Basically, the good ads went the way of the dodo because you have to either do something "wacky" or something so PC it kills any fun or direct messaging in order to avoid falling foul of the lawyers. So, every chocolate ad has some fit bird eating a chocolate bar on the sofa (because eating chocolate on the sofa doesn't make you fat, obviously, only a sexist pig would suggest that), rather than the Milk Tray Man ads which people used to look forward to. The only humour can be totally non-offensive (or non-existant, as all humour picks on somebody, after all), and there can be no stereotyping unless it directly denegrates white heterosexual males....

Shame, really - it's buggered creativity.

The problem isn't the ads - it's the letigious twats who've made everyone in the media afraid of their own bloody shadow.
(Chad, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 17:15, 26 replies)

Click
and not just for the pear orchard bit!
( M3rx likes the Asian ladies, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 17:23, closed)

Agreed.
In fact given the rules governing TV advertising (or fear of litigation), in some cases it's a miracle anything funny or creative is made, especially in some sectors like alcohol.

If I remember rightly (and my memory may make the details sketchy), the rules governing advertising beer are something like:

- nobody can be younger than 25 in an alcohol advert
- if you want to circumvent this by chucking some youthful looking 25 year old boy or girl in the ad then you can't, as nobody can APPEAR to be younger than 25 in said advert
- ever noticed how the blokes in beer ads are so 'average' looking? I think I'm right in saying you can't use good looking people in alcohol ads as to insinuate that drinking lots makes you better looking
- you can't insinuate that drinking alcohol makes you funnier
- you can't insinuate that drinking alcohol makes you more attractive to the opposite sex
- you can't insinuate that drinking alcohol makes you more relaxed

Remember these next time a Carling or Carlberg advert comes on - it's a miracle they're creative enough to make something that passes for watchable or vaguely funny in my opinion.

It also explains the fucking abstract nonsense that Guiness vomit onto our screens.
(.click, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 17:32, closed)

Funny you should mention that
My flatmate is currently a bit despondent in his job and was looking for somewhere else to go, and considered offering himself to Fuller's for work in their PR/advertising department. This obviously led to a drunken discussion of how someone who drinks far too much London Pride and ESB could convince others to do the same. I'd heard there were restrictions on linking alcohol to sexual success, but the ones about age, etc., are news to me - and a little alarming.

(Not least of all because he's basically a walking advert for real ale and won't be 25 for a couple of months yet...)
(LongJohnBaldry, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 17:43, closed)

unfortunate but true

( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 17:36, closed)

Interesting.
It simply hadn't occurred to me that the industry has been suffocated by legal red-tape. Are there any examples of companies cunningly circumventing or even subtly parodying these enforced pc stereotypes?
Clickety-click btw.
(Happybara The jungle came alive and took him, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 17:37, closed)

I think Egg, that old online savings bank
did a good job of parodying it - even down to a shot of some black guy washing his car and smiling at the camera to say,
"..and I'm the token black man!"

I'll see if I can find it.
(LongJohnBaldry, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 17:45, closed)

No... Advertising is the problem.
Those rules you bemoan are there because the manipulative fucks who write adverts would otherwise lie even more in the pursuit of more customers for some second-rate bubbly water.
Take note of the small-print-filled shit that is makeup advertising to see how much advertisers want to decieve, but can't. Watch some knuckle-dragger's loan adverts to see just how low advertisers will go and how small they'll make the print.
Advertisers are scum and you know it.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 17:46, closed)

actually...the clients would be the scum
Ad agencies aren't the ones offering credit cards at 45% interest. They're the ones tasked with polishing the turds.

The rules are there because thick people think that buying Wham-O Hair Oil will make them irresistible to women and then want to sue when it doesn't. Most beauty creams are about 80% water, with basically sheep fat (Lanolin) or some other organic agent that will a) dry the skin slightly to tighten it (thus "reducing wrinkles") and which will give a slightly slick feel making the gullible old crone who thinks face-lard will make her dried-up fanny appealing to those under 50 the impression that her skin feels smoother.

Toothpastes? About 80% chalk/gypsum with some other bits and pieces.

Manufacturers are targeting the idiots, those with more money than brains and those desperate to believe that product X will, in some way, improve their life/self worth/sexual prowess, etc. The ad agency comes in when the manufacturer says "Right, we have made this load of old toss, which is 99% the same as all the other old toss out there - how can we differentiate it?".

Ad people aren't liars - they are cynical fuckers who are just trying to sell shit we don't want/need on behalf of the idiots who made this crap in the first place.
(Chad, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 18:02, closed)

I always knew that
wogs and benders were to blame for everything.
(Spleep Shit, or get off the internet., Tue 20 Apr 2010, 18:09, closed)

nope...
it's the weak-minded beige people with no spine who think that every tiny minority should somehow be held up higher than the rest of society - I am all for equality, but it should be just that. If ads can be made where men look stupid and women ogle them, then there should be no objection to doing it the other way around.
(Chad, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 18:14, closed)

They fucking are, you know.

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 22 Apr 2010, 0:25, closed)

for the record...
I come from a tech/science background, have a long history in IT/Tech work and this career is one I have because I can work shorter hours and earn a rather obscene amount of money in comparison to my other jobs. Having said that, I view it all as an exercise in snake-oil-selling and I am happily studying for more tech-related certification to go elsewhere down the line.

Remember, if people didn't want to buy the stuff, no amount of advertising in the world would make them - no-one forces you to take out a Capital One card, or a Loans4U loan, etc - it's just the greed of the unintelligent saying "yeah, I may live in a council house on the dole, but why can't I have a holiday in Antigua and a new car?", after all...
(Chad, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 18:13, closed)

Bullshit.
Add people are there to manipulate people into thinking they need something they don't or that one identical product is better than another.
If I stand on a corner and tell people "the doctor in there is great!" so he can take out their kidneys amd sell them, does that make me innocent?
You are scum because you peddle the products of scum.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 18:14, closed)

Oh stroll on
Isn't there something else you could be getting your panties in a bunch over?
(mymilkshakebringsallthemongstotheyard poison hearts, poison minds - joining hate, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 8:27, closed)

Behave yourself.
If people didn't buy this shite there'd be no cause for advertising as everything would be bought be a well-informed, savvy set of consumers. Supply and demand, blame the people who buy the shit you're so inexplicably bothered about for being fucking thick or accept that maybe, just maybe, they wanted to buy something which you consider worthless.
(The man with the flan swashed his buckle on, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 11:07, closed)

I'm scum?
I work hard, act ethically and pay my taxes.

I'd figure the fucktards who buy shit they can't afford, haivng ignored all the written prompts about interest rates on the forms they are signing and then look to blame someone else for the fact they bought a sofa form DFS, a TV on credit from Dixons and ran up the credit card on tat from Primark are the scum, personally...

I earn good money and if I can't buy something with cash, I don't buy it - that way I am not up to my fucking eyeballs in debt and whinging. It's meant I haven't had a holiday other than to take a week off to sit in the garden since my honeymoon three years ago, whilst debt-riddled chavs jet off to Ibiza on a weekly basis, but I don't bitch about that - on the other hand, if they fail to pay the glorified loan sharks back for their debt I have zero sympathy and the greedy shits deserve all the grief they get. Along with the arseholes who thought (our PM included) that lending large sums of money to people whose only income was basically the goodwill of the taxpayer (benefits) was a good fucking idea.

I don't hate anyone based on gender, race, religion or sexuality. but I do despise the unintelligent when they think they somehow have a god-given right to a lifestyle they can't afford and then whine when they are asked to pay for it.

MY taxes, and those of everyone who actually pays them, will go up to pay for such fucking stupidity, yet you have the bollocks to stand up and call me scum for building a website to advertise mouthwash. Your lack of perspective on society astounds me. You utter moron.
(Chad, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 16:13, closed)

Ah, I understand now.
People "less clever" than you deserve to be conned. The fact that someone wasn't well educated and is less than bright means that they ought to pay you money.
Yes, there are lazy scroungers out there -- but there are also decent people who happen to be gullible. People like you telling them to pay money to so that they will have a better life are merely exploitative scum.
It may surprise you to learn that I'm a[na almost militant at times] capitalist -- but your view of those less intelligent than yourself as people who deserve what they get is, frankly, making me reconsider my position.
You make your money by manipulating other people into spending theirs the way your employers want them to -- you are scum.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 19:18, closed)

If you're so fucking thick
that your purchasing habits are influenced by vapid advertising claims then you DO deserve everything you get.

Fat spastics who try to blame MacDonald's for their own inability to eat properly are no different from the cunts who blame the education system for their badly-behaved, insolent children.

No-one is forcing these witless cretins to eat shit and rub 'scientific' bollocks into their faces in the misguided belief that it 'combats the five sizes of aging'. Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 22 Apr 2010, 0:32, closed)

If I was to choose my doctor
on the basis that someone I didn't know told me they were 'great' and they turned out not to be, that would be MY OWN STUPID FAULT for being such a mug.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 22 Apr 2010, 0:57, closed)

It's not stifling creativity
but it does, thankfully seem to be stamping out laziness. All the things you claim not to be allowed to do seem to be the lowest common denominator of the pre-PC culture. These days, if you want to make an ad that reaches people, you actually have to make it interesting. Try thinking of an ad as content that people actually would like to see, rather than re-hashing the same old stupid fucking jokes and obtuse shit starring overpaid Hollywood dickheads (j'adore? fuck me).

Apologies if it's the clients making you do this, but maybe if the advertising industry pulled its heads out of its collective arse, we'd have more ads like the Honda ones and less "Bang! And the dirt is gone."
( argyleblanket The man on the roof works for me, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 20:36, closed)

Honda
Funny you should mention Honda actually. They're often held up as a bastion of innovative, interesting advertising (and not unfairly), but they're also responsible for one of the wankiest briefs I've ever received. Last year I got hold of a brief from them that had some very choice quotes that give you an insight into the wonderfully wanky world of advertising.

I won't bore you with all of it, but I will give you my favourite client quote from the brief, repeated verbatim:

"Honda is an exciting, interesting company – one that society wants to exist."

One that society wants to exist? Fuck me, a couple of clever ads and a strong brand position and they've disappeared completely up their own arse.
(.click, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 12:41, closed)

I bet...
... you vote for UKIP.
(nordelius, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 12:24, closed)

Really well said mate.
The only thing I can even think to add to that is car insurance adverts.

There are companies that actually advertise that they will give lower rates to women or just provide policies to women only. Imagine the outcry that would cause were it to be the other way around? If a car advert said "Men, we all know you're better drivers than woman so we're offering you lower rates on your car insurance".

This backswing of sexism is really starting to grate on me!
(fannymcslap Slap my mcfanny, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 12:34, closed)

especially as the stats are bollocks
Every girl I know has crashed at least once in their life, mainly because they don't see cars as important and, as such, treat them like shit including using the bumper as an indication of when to apply the brakes when parking. Young "Girl Power" types are as eager to speed as young men, so why are they given preferential rates? Easy, because more young men are in jobs where they drive long hours on motorways (white van men, reps, etc) - when they crash, they crash BIG. Hence it costs more to fix.

The ditzy receptionsit whose Corsa has no single panel undented doesn't write the car off, despite having lots of little "bumps", so the insurers can load the stats to the more profitable end. Same goes wil SAGA insurance - old farts tend to potter round town at 20mph. They'll take your wing mirror off, but they are unlikely to fall asleep at the wheel after an 80-hour week and write off the car on the M25.

Again, who's the immoral shit - the ad man trying to put a jingle on the message, or the money-grabbing fucker skewing logic to ensure they can tighten the grip on your wallet?
(Chad, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 16:06, closed)

At least understand your fucking buisiness, man.
Women, on average, have a lot of minor crashes -- the kind which can be repaired by a few quid for a paint job. Men, on the other hand, have less crashes but, in total, they cost more.
Bumping a few dozen cars in the car park is neither more costly nor more harmful than misjudging a corner and killing three people (as an extreme example).
Make your fucking mind up: do you want to make money from the business or are you just in it to be a cunt?
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 19:23, closed)

It is peculiar
how certain media are deemed responsible for the stupidity of consumers, but not others. Advertising, and, even weirder, music, is regularly demonised for this, whereas 'The Movies' and television are apparently fine. I can watch a series of graphically-depicted brutal murders on TV on a weekday afternoon (or buy a 'true crime' magazine from a supermarket no matter what my age), but a 'rap record' describing a gangland slaying will turn me into a 'copy-cat killer' AND THIS SICK FILTH MUST BE BANNED.

If I wipe out my classmates with a submachine gun it's because I am fucking mental, not because Marilyn bloody Manson told me to, the bonk-eyed twat-end.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 22 Apr 2010, 0:42, closed)