Suzanne Moore wrote a piece in the Guardian recently on the power of advertising and the crass claims from some that they are immune to its influence. The article included this intensely personal, yet powerful, argument:
[T]his I do know: advertising works. I believe minds can be changed — why, otherwise, would I write?
Precisely.
I have long been intrigued by the power of advertising, which I see as almost universally harmful. I wrote this on the subject in my book, The Courageous State (page 172):
The nature of advertising has to be understood. Advertising is not the neutral act of informing market participants of the qualities of the products that might be available to them, as economists would like to think it is. Instead advertising and its related activities of marketing and market research create the opportunity to sell those things for which need (let alone desire) does not exist. As such advertising is not a response to the market; advertising is instead the force that creates markets.
In this case advertising provides biased information that is in very many cases targeted very specifically at audiences whose vulnerability has been profoundly understood by the advertiser. The whole purpose of advertising (small ads and maybe job recruitment apart) is not to inform, but is to spread dissatisfaction. Its intention is to make the person who is the target of the advertising campaign feel that their current consumption is inadequate and that they must have the item being promoted to achieve a proper sense of well-being. Advertising, therefore, is not an action designed to promote the benefits of ownership of the product it refers to; isntead advertising is deliberately designed to make a person feel their current position is inadequate but that this current state would be remedied if only they consumed more of a particular item.
Nothing has made me change my mind. But in that context what is the whole Facebook / Cambridge Analytica issue about? And can anyone argue that it has added to the net sum of human well-being? And if not, isn't that the reason for taking action?
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The necessary action should probably be along the lines of making the digital data relevant to people the property of those people, to be shared only if they agree. Facebook’s really useful so I wouldn’t want to see it close, but it clearly exists as a sandpit in which our behaviours might be studied so we can best be targeted by advertisers. That information itself can then be retained and sold on. Well if we do stuff and it has monetary value, why shouldn’t we be getting a share of that value in monetary terms too? Why shouldn’t we who make it all possible by our participation all get a slice of the financial Facebook pie?
Facebook as a cooperative?
I like it….
Well its a natural monopoly of sorts and its full of unpaid content providers as Bill suggests so that seems like a pretty good idea.
New social networks and Apps will surely emerge and people will have a choice as to whether they allow their data and connections to be exploited. Facebook shareprice will drop as more and more people understand the implications of Cambridge Analytica and vote with their feet.
Perhaps the state or the EU has a role to play?
“Bill Kruse asks:
“…Why shouldn’t we who make it all possible by our participation all get a slice of the financial Facebook pie?”
I expect the argument goes along the lines of “you get the free facility of the service”.
Much of the dissatisfaction with ‘deal’ is that people thought they were getting something for nothing – and they didn’t understand the ‘price’ for that. Though they have been told and quite frequently.
I’m not saying it’s a fair contract. But ’emptors’ need to sharpen their ‘caveat’ antennae when ‘free lunch’ is offered.
Advertising and arms expenditure both have something in common. That is, they produce wages, salaries and dividends but no corresponding output that we need or that can be purchased. For example, we cannot go out and buy an advert, or purchase an aircraft carrier. The costs are therefore loaded on to our cost of living and thus act as inflationary influences. They are thus part of the fictitious economy Finance, Insurance and Real Estate so ably described by Michael Hudson. This is the costing mechanism that pushes wealth upwards and poverty downwards. A dynamic that can only work because shares not people have economic votes.
Labour under Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell are pledged to introduce and expand economic democracy. This would be in direct opposition and competition to Capitalistic domination. If anyone is confused by the attacks on Labour on multiply fronts particularly the unjust anti-Semitism smears this is one of the reasons.
It’s long overdue that the entire marketing industry (advertising, PR, sales promotion, research etc.) was outed as being the undemocratic, regressive, corrupting force that it is. I personally regret having spent much of my life working within it, but that’s another story!
The estimated global spend for ‘media & marketing’ in 2017 was approx. $US 457.4 billion. That it is so huge is because, as stated, it works. Actually, it’s probably considerably more than that because the term’ marketing’ is not precisely defined. For example, it’s not clear if the figure includes election budgets. The ‘official’ price tag for the US 2016 presidential and congressional elections combined was an eye-watering $6.5 billion.
Marketing is a dark art. Way back in 1957 Vance Packard, the prescient author of ‘The Hidden Persuaders’ wrote: “At one of the largest advertising agencies in America, psychologists on the staff are probing sample humans in an attempt to find how to identify, and beam messages to, people of high anxiety, body consciousness, hostility, passiveness, and so on.” And ““You can probably make them do anything for you: Sell people things they don’t need; make women who don’t know you fall in love with you.”
I could write a long, boring essay on the topic, but I’ll spare you that. Besides many more erudite people, incl. social-psychologists and ex.marketeers, have written excellent books on the topic. Suffice to say, ‘Marketing’ covers a multitude of sins; among them is advertising which is nothing more than propaganda dressed up in fancy (and expensive) clothes.
The advice I offer to anyone who asks about absolutely anything in this age of financialisation is: Just follow the money. Simples! (to quote a popular tv ad campaign).
“The whole purpose of advertising (small ads and maybe job recruitment apart) is not to inform, but is to spread dissatisfaction. Its intention is to make the person who is the target of the advertising campaign feel that their current consumption is inadequate and that they must have the item being promoted to achieve a proper sense of well-being.”
Or, to put it another way:
“When I’m watchin’ my tv and a man comes on to tell me
How white my shirts can be
But, he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke
The same cigarettes as me…
…I can’t get no satisfaction”
– The Rolling Stones, 1965
I’d forgotten that one
As has been said whenever we are out there using free stuff from the internet (fb and social media, etc) then we needn’t look far for the product. We are the product. And as said above A. fb is useful and B. shouldn’t we share in the revenue … Well it is useful and it is free, so there is our reward. We get it free. What we are learning is just how very carefully we ought to be in giving away too much of our product.
https://theconversation.com/deletefacebook-is-still-feeding-the-beast-but-there-are-ways-to-overcome-surveillance-capitalism-93874
Read that. Good link. Thanks.
Edward Bernays was known as the’ father of PR ‘ . He also happened to be the nephew of Sigmund Freud . Might there be a connection ?
The concept of the “unconscious” is philosophically and neuro-scientifically critically important. It was first explored by Schopenhauer (who unfortunately and unhelpfully used the term ‘will’ to describe it); and Carl Gustav Carus. In my opinion the twentieth century was an unhappy time for the concept; especially after Freud decided to turn his attention towards it, following his first, disastrous but actually shrewd, socially dangerous but more effective interpretation of a phenomenom he had studied under Charcot in Paris, and that he wrote about in ‘The Aetiology of Hysteria’; which he later wholly rejected.
Facebook has undoubtedly monopolised some aspects of the internet. NGO’s for instance reach as few as 3% of their supporters on fb because priority is given to those who pay for advertising. I think it can also makes us complacent and lazy.
There’s a new provider which is free, in every sense, which gives 100% reach to users, find it here
https://joinmastodon.org/
The facebook algorithm
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2018/facebook-don%E2%80%99t-want-you-to-know-how-their-algorithm-works
Good stuff.
If a company were to invent a brilliant new renewable energy gadget that could help individuals reduce their energy usage and CO2 emissions, should they not advertise the fact to increase its use?
If an advert were to go out comparing the new product with existing energy-intensive technology, would potential users feel ‘inadequate’ in sticking with environmentally-damaging technology. Would this be a good thing?
Or is this example another ‘exception’. If so, who will police the boundary between ‘unnecessary’ and ‘exception’? This is not a trivial question. If such a regulator was appointed, how would they verify claims? Who would have the expertise?
I’m very much against the excesses of advertising, but would like to hear some well thought through proposals rather than standing by while the wolves of indignation fight over the raw meat of moral outrage.
I am not suggesting advertising be banned
I am saying it should cost a great deal more so that it bears its social costs
I will post on this. maybe tomorrow
It would help to examine the whole value chain of innovation, product design, marketing and tax in order to examine the various angles in terms of first movers and the common good. Nobody is suggesting that we can put any of the inventions of this century back in the box. And it is perhaps the lack of regulation and appropriate taxation which has given the FAANGS such a dominant position.
They claim to be platforms so as to avoid legal liability for whatever is published and yet at the same time they monetise the content in ways which could not be imagined some twenty years ago. As with every faultline in western democracies, one can examine the neoliberal approach and then suggest that more regulation, more tax and more support for state and or co-operative participation in the market will encourage a better outcome.
However, if there is a suggestion to police marketing and advertising then that appears as if it is a step towards a centrally planned economy that we saw in the last century. This is a vital question to be answered on the left since we ain’t seen nothing yet when it comes to innovation and change. The main movers of Brexit are in it for one reason: they want to free up the regulatory grip of the EU and deregulate as much as possible under a blue UK government – this to provide a business environment to support first movers in a wide range of markets. The numbers are eye watering, so it is essential that the thinking on the left is precise when it comes to the Customs Union, Single Market, regulation and tax as applied to innovation and marketing. Extremely precise in fact for weakness in this area will be targetted.
@ Trevor Dale
I fear there are no easy straight-forward answers to your concerns. It’s a very complicated issue (a hornet’s nest even) that necessitates a lot more space than is appropriate here. As I mentioned above, marketing – which includes advertising – is a broad church covering all aspects of demand creation and ‘product’ (in the widest sense) delivery, embracing also industry, political parties and government. Its tentacles reach into every aspect of our daily life, with or without your conscious permission.
The comments that have been made are simply pointers, raising issues of genuine concern about an industry that wields enormous power behind a cloak of largely public anonymity. I think the discussion so far has been essentially regarding what might be described as ‘life-style’ marketing (advertising, PR and sales promotion) which uses increasingly sophisticated (and costly) techniques to target potential consumers, then pre-persuade (condition) them to purchase products and services that are not ‘essential’ to their general well-being. And might even be damaging to them.
As Richard says, it’s not about banning advertising per se, although governments might decide to do so for certain products/services, in the public interest – which of course they already do – via the ASA (https://www.gov.uk/marketing-advertising-law/advertising-codes-of-practice). There are also self-regulating bodies. However, as with the banking industry, basically it is light-touch regulation for fear of upsetting those who prosper most from the results of this activity – the big business community, the CBI, the MSM, and influential people in the trade like Sir Martin Sorrell and the Saatchis, et al.
Clearly, disseminating information to the public about goods and services that have some social value is a good thing. Who decides what is ‘of social value’ can be done in the same way that governments usually manage and legislate.
Taxation is a good way to achieve policy outcomes. End users are already taxed in such a way on tobacco, liquor, etc. Hence, certain forms of advertising could be taxed in order to bear some of the societal costs resulting from its activities, levied on both clients and their agencies. Food and drug advertising immediately comes to mind.
Purely informatic advertising (viz. personal ads, classified, public announcements from trade & industry etc.) would be exempt. And maybe commercial ads that simply provide product/service information without the creative bells and whistles could have a dedicated category. For its own needs, perhaps the government should resurrect the COI which was closed down at the end of 2011.
I’ve probably raised more issues than I’ve even partially resolved. But in view of its power, influence and sheer size I think many would agree that it needs much closer regulation in terms of its ever more complex technology, the unseen effect it has on community and democracy.
‘Nuff said from me. I’m outta’ here. Cameriere, il conto per favore.
“The wolves of indignation” could be good name for a rock band.
PS: For those interested, it was remiss of me not to have mentioned the pioneering work done by Prof. Philip Kotler, Northwestern University , in the field of ‘Social Marketing’ – http://www.socialmarketingservice.com/site/assets/files/1010/socmkt_primer.pdf.
[…] expressed my view on advertising on Saturday. Much of that post came from my book, The Courageous State. So too does the following, […]
I have tried to do my bit in this area by discussing with my children how absurd most adverts are. If something needs to be heavily advertised then it probably doesn’t have any unique beneficial features (it it did then news of it would be spread by personal recommendation) and the advertising cost is going to be loaded on the purchase price. I really dislike celebrities (who are well paid anyway) endorsing products. They probably think it is a harmless activity to earn some easy money but in reality they are taking that money from those less fortunate than themselves.
My personal favourites for vacuous advertising are the long-running one for an electric toothbrush “inspired by dentists” which is so full of nonsense it is astonishing and the classic “up to 100% flake free” from a well known anti-dandruff shampoo advert!