How much have you sacrificed today?

This weekend I was at Sky City in Auckland. After dinner, a quest for Ice Cream sent me and my friends into the casino. There was no ice cream there. We exited the casino and left the building, walking past a series of personalised number plates stapled to pristine motor vehicles and I recalled something I had read in one of my favourite books, American Gods, written by Neil Gaiman:

“Entering the casino one is beset at every side by invitation – invitations such that it would take a man of stone, heartless, mindless, and curiously devoid of avarice, to decline them.

Listen: a machine gun rattle of silver coins as they tumble and spurt down into a slot machine tray and overflow onto monogrammed carpets is replaced by the siren clangor of the slots, the jangling, bippeting chorus swallowed by the huge room, muted to a comforting background chatter by the time one reaches the card tables, the distant sounds only loud enough to keep the adrenaline flowing through the gamblers’ veins.

There is a secret that the casinos possess, a secret they hold and guard and prize, the holiest of their mysteries. For most people do not gamble to win money, after all, although that is what is advertised, sold, claimed and dreamed. But that is merely the easy lie that allows the gamblers to lie to themselves, the big lie that gets them through the enormous, ever-open, welcoming doors.

The secret is this: people gamble to lose money. They come to casinos for the moment in which they feel alive, to ride the spinning wheel and turn with the cards and lose themselves, with the coins, in the slots. They want to know they matter. They brag about the nights they won, the money they took from the casino, but they treasure, secretly treasure, the times they lost. It’s a sacrifice, of sorts.”

Advertising and Gambling are twin engines of the same religion. Advertisers sacrifice vast amounts of money to the Advertising Gods in the hope that they’ll win big. Don’t believe me? Well, I’m sure you’ve heard this one before: “half of my advertising budget is wasted, I just don’t know which half.” It’s the calling card on the inept. But they also say (whoever “they” are) that you’ve gotta spend money to make money. So why do advertisers sacrifice money without any idea of what the return will be?

The reason is that advertising is a realm of sacrifice. In the same way that casinos beguile their victims with colour and noise and scent is the same way that advertising sells its counterfeit dreams. “Spend more! Spend more! Your advertising works (even though we can’t prove it)! If you stop sacrificing, everyone else who is will pull ahead. Is that what you want?”. It must be true; there are thousands and thousands of advertising messages getting nailed into our heads every day, so someone must be winning.

Yes, someone is winning but it’s not you and it’s not your competitors either. The House always wins. Advertising Agencies, Media Buyers, PR companies, Design Ninja Shops, Web Thrillers… they’re all different rooms in the same House. They always win.

And you’ll always lose if you continue to believe that gamblers play to win; that there’s a box you should think out of; that people buy watches to tell the time; and that if 50% of your advertising is working then that's enough.

Sexism in advertising? Say in ain't true!

Honestly, the news that Saatchi & Saatchi NZ big knob Kevin Roberts was placed on leave for sexist comments is as daft as reporting that Mars is far away. Advertising is the most widely accepted sexist industry. How we can act with any surprise to Kev's sexism is beyond me. One man getting pinged for sexist acts will make no difference to anything. In fact, you have more chance of emptying the sea with a fork.

The entire advertising industry is rife with it, from the top to the bottom, through the middle and the back. How many female interns applied for a job at Saatchis on the creative director's casting couch? How many Auschwitz thin models have taken lusty bites out of fast food products that haven't seen the inside of their bodies since before they were teens? How many wives were presented with irons or washing machines or cigarettes as birthday presents?

Just type "Sex in advertising" into your google search bar and see what comes up.  Below are a few from the Saatchi & Saatchi stable.

These ads are as sexist as can be, so why do the women who work at Saatchi's not do something about this? Why are they happy when all the company is doing is perpetuating a creative stereotype and doing nothing significant for feminism? If you work in an industry that breeds sexism then don't complain when some idiot says a sexist thing. Especially when your company is flogging dead meat in a bun using a 21-year-old, double-D blond in a bikini to do it. Double standards I think. You can't work at a death camp and complain about the quality of your toilet paper when all around you people are getting hacked to death. Excuse my metaphors but at least they're not sexist. Make a change. Protest. Walk out. Burn the office down. Hang the bastard. Make it significant. Change the status quo for all of us. Please.

The Four Horseman of the Advertising Apocalypse.

Recently a Chinese advert made its way onto the Internet and was immediately labelled “The Most Racist Advert of all Time.”

A bold claim, especially since the advert is a direct steal of an advert done in Italy in 2009, except that the preferred racial role has been swapped. Take a look.

Well, what did you think? Which is more racist? More importantly, what are you going to do about it? It’s the latter question that proves to be the most difficult to execute, especially in this scenario where the offender is thousands of miles away. After all, it’s so easy to complain, and it’s lots of fun, but when the rubber hits the road there isn’t a complainant in sight.

We live in an over-connected, over-nuanced and over-Photoshopped miniverse where many advertisers just don’t care if they cause offence, and worse, many consumers don’t care either. Late last year a company called 2Cheap Cars placed an ad on TV that could have been seen as racist as it featured a Pakeha (white) girl dressed in a Kapa Haka (Maori) outfit. The company stood by its view that the ad wasn't racist and didn’t budge when criticised. To be honest I don’t see it as racist. I find it offensive because it’s one of those mindless, bottom-of-the-barrel types of ads, designed to aggravate and annoy to gain brand presence. Anyway, what do I know? Paul White, the “Marketing Expert at Auckland University” said 2Cheap Cars’ strategy was a well-proven one, used by many advertisers (he refers to Harvey Norman) and if they wanted to do it then they can go right ahead.

Paul White’s statement is ludicrous, outdated and ignorant. Much of last century’s advertising towards women was sexist beyond words. Does that mean that today’s advertisers should carry on following this outdated and moronic methodology or should they change the approach of their advertising? It looks like a bit of both. There are now far fewer adverts showing women as vacuum cleaner lovers but heaps more of women trying to shove huge hotdogs down their throats or flashing their underwear. So it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other.

I’ve always felt that the advertising industry is very lax about governing its creative output. There isn’t really an industry body (except our own morality) that keeps us in check, regardless of where we advertise. And that brings me back to 2Cheap Cars. This weekend I was strolling along Tamaki Drive in Mission Bay when I heard one of their awful adverts blaring from the back of a truck. 2Cheap Cars have gone mobile and were blasting advertising messages from speakers mounted to the sides of a truck. Is that the best they could do to be heard? In the end, 2Cheap will most likely be spoken of in the same breath as a streaker at an All Blacks’ game. And that’s cool ‘cos that’s what they want.

So, which is the biggest sin in advertising? Some might say lack of originality or complaining too much on your blog but my experience in New Zealand is that Apathy is the biggest offender, followed by Sexism, Racism and then Blasphemy. The reason Apathy comes out on top is that no one gives a damn. Let me rephrase that, no one gives a damn about doing more than just shaking their heads and moaning on Social Media. Sexism comes second mostly because it’s easy to spot. Racism is a bit harder because it’s better disguised. Blasphemy is last because that whole thing is dying out, plus you’ll never know who’ll take offence at your message and how they’ll react to your blaspheming. The last thing any business needs is the delivery of anthrax in the mail.

The truth is that advertising is far too powerful, regardless of whether 2Cheap Cars or Vodafone or Greenpeace are doing it. Unfortunately, we as consumers gave it all that power. Isn’t it time we took the power back?

What do you think of this image: ignorant, sexist, racist or blasphemous? I’d say it’s blasphemous, but I see the others too. What about you? Leave a note in the comments and we can discuss. 

Believe in Brussels

The Mafia doesn't have a website. They don’t have a brochure either. Nor do they have flyers, business cards, email signatures, TV ads or any of your typical advertising material.

They don’t even have a real social media presence either. They don’t canvas at universities for top graduates, they don’t place recruitment ads on LinkedIn, they don’t have banners and they don’t hold marches. So how do they get new members?

They sell a belief system that attracts a certain type of person who is prepared to believe. 

The same goes for the National Rifle Association (NRA). They don’t sell a physical product. The NRA sells the belief that an ordinary American citizen has the right to bear arms. Doesn’t matter what type of gun, just as long as you can have it.

Donald Trump isn’t selling the idea of him being president. He’s selling the belief that voting for him is the right decision. If Trump wins the election who really knows what he’ll be doing? You can’t follow him around as he goes about his duties and you can’t attend his clandestine meetings. Do his voters really care what he is doing three years after the election? Most likely not. Why? Because they weren’t sold a president in the same way they get sold a car or a vacuum cleaner; they were sold the belief that they made the right decision.

At the end of the day isn’t that what we’re all being sold?

The thing is I wrote the above paragraphs yesterday morning before the bombings in Brussels.

Belief is a terrible thing to sell and it’s an even worse commodity to purchase. It can be manipulated and twisted for the wrong ends; it can make monsters of people, legends of men and morons from the masses. But the truth is we choose what we believe in. I don’t believe in Christ but I believe in Apple. Why?

Is this the power that marketing and advertising have?

Don't be deceived when our revolution has been finally stamped out and they pat you paternally on the shoulder and say that there's no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason for fighting, because if you believe them, they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretense of bringing them culture...
Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them, they'll send you out to protect their gold in wars, who's weapons rapidly developed by servile scientists will become more and more deadly, until they can, with the flick of the finger, tear a million of you into pieces