Here's last week's Campaign thing:
Like all institutions the advertising industry is obsessed with self-preservation. Anything that hints at a trammeling of our expansion or reach is decried as unnecessary, anti-competitive and not good for consumers. Our trade bodies have knee-jerk press releases ready to go at the slightest hint of legislation controlling where ads are allowed to appear - almost always mentioning the likely Death of Children's Television and the resulting End of Western Civilisation. But maybe we should stop worrying and learn to love the fact that there'll just be less advertising and less commercial media in our futures, but that if we're smart it can be the rubbish that gets binned, not the high-quality stuff.
It's clear from every 'ad avoidance' study that if technology allows us to steer clear of advertising we're going to do so. (Even the terminology betrays our prejudices; 'ad avoidance'? as though avoiding ads is the aberrant behaviour and the normal thing to do is seek them out). And, to me, it's equally clear that society at large is asking for some rebalancing between commercial and private spaces. Bans on junk food ads may be clumsy tools but they demonstrate a societal desire to push back the extent of commercial interruption in our lives. And as traditional channels fragment clever media people are going to find new ways to barge into people's attention, just making the problem worse. How long before the posher villages and towns start to consider outlawing posters? How long before the EU tries to ban DM? It's easy to dismiss these people as nosy bureaucrats meddling for the sake of it, but they're undoubtedly reacting to some significant tides in popular sentiment.
And if there's less advertising then there's going to be less commercial media. It's inevitable, but is it necessarily a disaster? Concern over kid's TV might be fair, but outside that area, if there were only three ITVs and only eight sections in the Sunday Times would that really presage a new cultural dark age? I don't think so. Mostly because it won't be the high-quality content that will disappear, it'll be the rubbish that'll go. We're entering a new age of attentionomics where high-quality content can find it's audience relatively easily and it's the low-quality pap that's left with no business model.
So how should we react? Well perhaps not by always lobbying for the right to bug people, but by preparing ourselves for a world where we'll have to be actively invited into people's lives, which means making content that's more entertaining or compelling than any other reasonably convenient option.
Russell, it's great that you post this and I wish by some act of god a link to this would appear in the inbox of every ad agency chief here. We had a huge row over legislation being pushed that would limit the number of billboards in the city of Bucharest and also the use of cartoon characters in advertising for kids. And the reaction is always the same: advertising people get miffed because the world does not let them bother and manipulate everyone easily, but rather they ask them to make an effort. I wish you could come in and have a talk about this to everyone here..
Posted by: Bogdana | March 06, 2007 at 10:43 AM