THE ENEMIES OF ADVERTISING

By BRIAN COPLAND

1OOK for a moment, not at the criticisms of , advertising, but at the critics. What- ever the ostensible reasons they give for opposi- tion to advertising and whatever apparently rational arguments they adduce for controlling, reducing, or even doing away with it altogether, these people do not carry with them the convic- tion of the genuine critic.

Of course, an obtrusive and public activity like advertising is wide open to criticism of detail, Much of it justified. But the source of the criticism and its motivation are almost as important as its content. A responsible and respected critic brings affection as well as knowiedge to his subject, and his comments and advice, though often bitter to receive, are seen to be constructive. By this criter- ion the people I shall describe here are not critics at all; they are enemies of advertising.

Who are they, then, and why do they react so violently against advertising? The defenders of advertising are clearly more single-minded, and their motivations much more directly related to the subject itself. It is precisely because so many attacks on advertising are in reality directed against other targets that the reconciliation of the two points of view is difficult if not impos- sible. A man who attacks advertising because he dislikes and fears mass communications or dis- approves of the profit motive will have little or nothing in common with the man who accepts the existence of mass communications and fav- ours the profit motive. A universe of discourse within the bounds of which debate can be con- tinued is almost entirely lacking. Hence the frus- tration and irritation on both sides. The defence is based upon knowledge of the techniques of advertising and on an acceptance of it as a neces- sary function in our society: a substantial part of•the attack seems to stem from a wide and deep dislike of the way in which our society works or even from the critic's own inability to in- tegrate himself with it.

The people who are so implacably hostile to advertising need d name. It is unhappily true that most of the enemies of advertising are to be found among those who claim, whether or not they actually deserve, the title of 'intellectual.' This could be because 'intellectuals' are the only People who are clever enough to detect the hid- den persuaders behind the harmless salesmen or, more likely perhaps, because the intellectual' takes such a pride in his difference and super- iority that he loses touch with normality—per- haps, after all, 'pharisee' is not such a bad label

for them.

There certainly are not all that many of them. If representative samples of the population are asked to express their views on advertising, small but appreciable proportions will exhibit a fairly strong distaste for it in all or some of its mani- festations. These little groups are concentrated -as various surveys show—in the upper and middle classes and here also is where the phari- sees are to be found. Although they may be superior in education, talent and influence, these

people are few in numbers and we are certainly dealing with a small minority of the whole popu- lation.

Let's take a closer look at a typical pharisee. We shall not be far out if we take as the first _distinguishing feature an apparent inability to come to terms with mass communication. Adver- tising, of course, is a part, and an obvious part, of the whole mass communication process. It is no coincidence that many of those who exhibit this general hostility to advertising have to rely for their daily bread and jam upon the accept- ance by the public of their own personalities. They are teachers, politicians, professional men, artists, and by definition they stand. alone, armed only with their convictions, their personal skills and their modes of expression. If I were a teacher I shou!d be alarmed by the latest developments of audio-visual in aruction, and advertising night appear to me to be the not-so-thin end of a brave new education wedge. But I would be wrong to inveigh against advertising alone; what is wanted is some much more fundamental thinking about •

education.

• The techniques of mass communications re- present a powerful and ever-present threat to the status and peace of mind of individuals whose lives are spent in the attempt to influence others. Mass communications, with advertising as one of the most obvious manifestations, represent not only all those features of life that cannot easily be brought under individual control, but also the greatest threat to the intellectual's distinctive competence. Those whose business it is to per- suade and influence others are the last to wel- come competition.

Fear and ignorance go hand in hand, and it is distressing to find among the enemies of adver- tising instance after instance of an astonishing lack of personal experience of mass media and of the advertising which forms an essential part of them. There is all the difference in the world between 'knowing' and 'knowing about.' L sus- pect that many of these critics of advertising have deliberately cut themselves off from ex- posure to mass media and rely almost entirely for their 'knowing about' it upon the second-hand opinions of equally ignorant people.

Richard Crossman, in a recent article in En- counter, put the point admirably when he de- scribes his own experience with television as follows: 'It so happens that last winter a serious illness kept me completely bedridden for three months. . . . The obvious cure for this boredom was radio and television and very soon l became a regular viewer. . . . Now I was a member of the captive audience which relies upon television as its main form of entertainment and cultural experience. . . . I found the difference in my point of view so remarkable that I began to ob- serve my reactions.' Three months in bed is not

the only answer, but if the intellectual critics were to make even the smallest attempt to put themselves into the place of genuine members of the viewing audience, I for one would be much more ready to attend to their views on adver- tising.

The real problem presented by the growth of mass media goes far beyond the particular in- terest of any minority. However, even when our pharisee can free himself from his fears and can bring himself to experience the full blast of mass communications. complete with advertising on every page and on one channel of television, he is still necessarily influenced by his personal social philosophy. The essential fact about mass communications which has to be faced by our society is that they depend upon complicated and costly pieces of machinery wh ch must ulti- mately be controlled by some person or group, Shall these complex machines—press and tele- vision—be controlled by public servants or shall they be available to anyone who can pay the price? What is the nature of the choice to be exercised by the publ c? Is it only the right not to hear or see? We are all, minority and majority alike, struggling with these problems, and adver- tising—the use of mass communications for the purpose of selling goods—represents only a small part of the whole challenge to our society.

To the extent that the intellectual is willing to study this consclerable technological advance in our culture and to the extent that he is making a serious effort to apply the principles of free- dom of communication, his opinions and con- clusions are of value to all of us. To the extent, on the other hand, that he fails to see this prob- lem in perspective and contents himself with attacks on advertising he is wasting our time as well as his own.

It is precisely at this point that another im- portant characteristic of the critic obtrudes itself, It is difficult enough to arrive at a socially accept able decision about the control and use of the media of mass communication as it is, but if to this is added a marked distaste (to use no stronger term) of the profit motive, it becomes virtually impossible to discuss the problem. Many of those who make up the minority seem to focus the whole of their rejection of the economics of our society on to advertising and fail to appre- ciate the difference between primary criticism of an economic system and hostility towards a secondary and derivative manifestation of that system. This helps to explain why general hos- tility towards advertising is such a valuable in- dication of personal economic and political bias.

The stronger the political views the greater the danger of intolerance. The psychologist would find it significant that those who insist most on the freedom of choice for the consumer seem to be those who wish most fervently to impose their views on others. Crusading fervour mates with intellectual superiority and gives birth to contempt for the public. In the article by Richard Crossrnan referred to earlier there is a clear in- dication of this distinctive characteristic of our pharisee. Speaking of a couple of critics of tele- vision, he says: 'And the reason for this blind- ness, I am pretty sure, is the fact that they them- selves are not viewers and instinctively despise the viewing audience' [my italics]. Undoubtedly, the most dangerous and distasteful source of hostility to advertising is the attitude of contempt for the 'viewer,' the 'housewife', the 'shopper,' he 'ordinary man and woman.'

So frequently when one studies the pharisee, me finds evidence of this sense of superiority to he consumer. Why is this? A minority which s out of step with the community in which it lives and which suffers for it inevitably manu- factures a scapegoat if one cannot be found ready-made. Perhaps this is why Priestley has to refer to 'predatory and ruthless large-scale capitalists.' Given the fairy-tale figure of the wicked giant, it follows that the poor unsophis- ticated consumer must be protected from him and the role of Protector of the Poor is an ap- pealing one. The Molony Committee, although saddled with the title 'Consumer Protection,' has very properly taken a much more balanced view of the consumer. While accepting, as we all do, the importance of continuing consumer educa- tion and the need for the law to take cognisance of modern marketing methods, the Committee does not fall into the trap of regarding con- sumers as children or morons. Throughout the section of the report dealing with Advertising and Sales Practices, there is a most refreshing appreciation of the consumer as an adult who must be permitted to make his own mistakes and who, in fact, is generally shrewd enough not to make the same mistake twice. For example: 'The measures we recommend in aid of the con- sumer do not aim to relieve him of the duty to look after himself. No system of protection can avert all the consequences of folly or eliminate every possibility of hardship. We have not tried to achieve this and we are sure it is neither pos- sible nor desirable to do so. The law cannot guard against every wile or adjust every trifling injustice. The consumer's first safeguard must always be an alert and questioning attitude. This in itself will supply a valuable stimulus to com- merce' (Para. 896). And again: 'Nor do we think that the consumer would relish being told what to buy by any official body' (Para. 851). Finally, about some aspects of advertising: 'We think the consumer is fully capable of assessing the worth of these testimonials whichever form they take' (Para. 771).

Contrast the attitude of certain critics as quoted in the Pilkington Committee's Report. A comment on advertising magazines reads as fol- lows: 'The first criticism was that the magazines are not sufficiently distinguishable as advertise- ments. Obviously, on one level of their minds, viewers know that they are advertisements. Just as evidently, those which take the form of a television series risk blurring the distinction be- tween programme and advertisement. In effect, characters known to viewers as friendly per- sonalities because they appear in a regular pro- gramme endorse, as though they were disinter- ested parties, the claims of the advertisers. They give the impression of having on the most sen- sible homely grounds decided to recommend this article rather than that. Here the programme companies, as producers, designedly draw on viewers' loyalty gained in the course of normal programming. Naturally, those goods which these personalities recommend are those whose ,4 4 /I manufacturers have paid for them to be recom- mended. The more interesting the magazines be- come—and we have seen that it is on their in- trinsic interest that their places in program- ming is justified—the greater the likelihood that the viewer will, on another level of his mind, cease to realise that he is being sold something. We conclude that, despite the announcements on the screen at the beginning and end of the programme, the distinction insisted on by the Act—between the programme and the advertise- ment—is blurred' (Para. 259).

This quotation has been included in its entirety because otherwise it would be hard to believe that any normal individual could hold views which are at once so much at variance with real life and so arrogant. The only restrained com- ment which is proper in the face of such an out- rageous disparagement of the consumer is made by the Molony Committee in a similar context: `. . . we are not disposed to take too censorious a view for the simple reason that we cannot be- lieve any normally sensible person is misled at all or that anyone is misled to a material extent' (Para. 772).

Combining intellectual superiority with cul- tural pretensions the minority man becomes the self-appointed guardian of our 'cultural heri- tage.' To a great extent our literature and our art are his stock in trade and any assaults on them either from inside or outside the commun- ity represent at one and the same time a chal- lenge to the self-appointed watchdog and a threat to his status. When the .infiltration of foreign cultural elements begins in the less 'well- educated' reaches of a society, as when our working-class youth embraces American popu- lar music, speech and fashion, the reactions of the guardians are the more extreme. Our phari- see, who sees himself as the custodian of tradi- tional cultural values, finds himself not only assaulted by alien influences from outside but also, as it were, betrayed from within the com- munity.

The symbols of cultural change, apart from the mass communication media themselves, are largely material possessions and the concomi- tant behaviour patterns and it is just these which are mostly forcibly presented by means of ad- vertising in general and television advertising in particular. The Joneses with whom we are in- vited to keep up are not our next-door neigh- bours, but frequently our neighbours in the United States. So, I surmise that the values ex- pressed in advertising, which are to a consider- able extent already accepted among the major- ity, are seen to be alien and dangerous by the minority. Advertising, therefore, which in fact merely mirrors the behaviour and attitudes held by most of the community, becomes in itself the alien influence which is to be fought at all costs.

The picture that I have drawn is of a sensi- tive minority, rather like the people who used to smoke tipped cigarettes, who are very rightly concerned with their society and their place in it. Their preoccupation with what makes them different leads them to ignore, or at any rate fail to appreciate properly, what is going on around them and this initial separation can quickly breed a contempt for the people and a totally unwarranted assumption of the paternal role. I would find little to quarrel with were it not for the fact that the members of this minority seem to have taken the easy way out of their difficulties. Instead of repairing their ignorance with the reasonable humility of the scholar and instead of tackling the much less rewarding task of tak- ing serious thought about the real condition of society, they content themselves only too often with facile, largely emotional attacks on adver- tising.

What should be the correct attitude to be adopted by this valuable minority in our com- munity? First, they should realise that adver- tising is only one, not exceptionally important, form of mass communication. It is concerned with the selling of the goods and services which our society—and every other society I can think of—has decided it needs. Second, they should make an effort to distinguish between advertis- ing, which is a normal and irreproachable use of media, and advertisements, which are fair game for the critic. Third, they might bring to their study of advertisements a little more ob- jectivity and collect, under properly controlled conditions, representative samples of advertise- ments from the major media. They would then find themselves faced with the laborious but necessary task of content analysis. Fourth, be- fore they talk about consumers and ask them- selves whether they need protection, they should take a leaf out of the advertiser's book and make a scientifically acceptable study of them. Finally, and this will be much more fun, they should try to get out of their goldfish bowl and experience life at first hand.

The novelty of attacks on advertising has worn off. Everything witty and amusing has now been said, and money has been paid for saying it. I do not often feel like quoting Lord Hailsham, but his approach in the House of Lords to the television controversy might well be applied to much of the unnecessary uproar about advertis- ing: 'The general thesis which I wish to advance is that the time has come to move away from the possibly somewhere superficial and academic gen- eralising about paternalism, commercialism, monopoly and free enterprise which have do- minated discussion of this subject so long, and to move towards a return to an agreed broad- casting policy based upon technical necessity and practical politics.' And again: `. . We must take our decisions on a calm understand- ing of the essential characteristics of this medium, of which we now all have a good deal more practical experience than seven years ago, and not on the mythology, political or other- wise, to which we happen to be adherents.' Everything that Lord Hailsham says here about television can most appropriately be said about advertising.

I have suggested in this article that a substan- tial proportion of the attacks on advertising stern, not from a dispassionate study of the activ- ity itself and the world in which we live, but from the personal 'mythology, political or other- wise' which is the distinctive characteristic of a minority of the population. This minority is vocal and influential. It can properly fulfil the role of a thinking, leading minority only if it recognises its limitations. When it does, we shall all, advertising men and simple citizens alike, be ready -to listen with more care to what it has to say.