Why We Hate Advertising
Well, maybe not hate. We just don’t like advertising.
Decades ago, infamous writers like John Steinbeck would hang their hats at the entryway of an old, repurposed firehouse—very close to where our office stands today. They’d hang out, arguing over the written word, in a salon that would later become an important backdrop during a cutthroat advertising era.
It was like the Golden Age for “ad men”. People like Howard Luck Gossage understood what it took to pull at our heart (and pocket) strings. Pioneers like him were beginning to pave the road for generations of aspiring advertisers to follow.
Dubbed the “Socrates of San Francisco,” at one point Gossage quipped:
“Nobody reads advertising. People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.”
There was heart in that. At the core of dreaming up an advertisement, there’s this understanding of what people want. In that quote, we caught a glimpse of the human condition.
Ultimately, as marketers or advertisers—whatever you want to call us—we have a responsibility to answer to people, and people are driven by emotion. So, where does advertising go wrong?
What is it about the whole advertising industry that makes us flinch? Is it the endless commercials with smiling babies? The dogs running to front doors to greet their people? Is it the catchy jingles that get stuck in our heads and in our dreams?
Advertising is just a collection of ideas etched out onto paper by people who think they’ve got the next great idea (and sometimes they do). It’s always a series of ups and downs, but things start to look fishy when the industry becomes completely homogenized. The ads all start to look the same. Suddenly, it feels like what’s coming at us is not even reflective of who we are.
Most advertisers still can’t get around this because they’re too busy trying to deliver what they think people want instead of asking what it is they actually want. People are still open to ideas—they just hope to get ones that are a little more personalized.
Is it even funny? Is it relatable enough to even care? Why should we care? After all, we’ve got smiling babies to go home to, dogs to greet us, and our own catchy jingles to make up in the shower.
In an insightful article on the state of marketing, called "Why Marketing Sucks”, by Erika Chaudhary, she notes:
“Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms constantly work on their algorithms and what was relevant last month it’s no longer relevant now.”
(Photo courtesy of Burst)
We know it might seem tempting to reach for the latest version of Advertising for Dummies, but the truth of the matter is that advertising is a reflection of our own collective attitudes, interests and desires. If advertising isn’t changing with the times, it’s going to start feeling a lot more like advertising than it should.
We simply can’t still be advertising like we were when Gossage was in his prime—although some of his very clever observations still hold true.
One thing is for sure: marketers spend far too much time trying to distance themselves from their audience to gain perspective. There is a disconnect between brands and the people they are trying to reach, as well as the times they are living in.
Marketers still think they are speaking to the masses with tunnel vision goggles on. There’s a connection missing. We are not robots, but humans who are as unwittingly mercurial as the weather. Our minds are full of wonder, and we crave ingenuity as much as authenticity.
There’s power in determining the state of change. Trends fade almost as quickly as they develop and the only thing that’s consistent is inconsistency itself. Advertising sucks because it progressively ignores this fact. The more time and energy marketers spend trying to understand the rate of change of their customers, as well as the larger society in which they operate, the better off they will be.
Hopefully, this will happen and we will all be spared one less catchy jingle we’d rather forget.