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| Patrick, Written by Matt Chiabotti  , on Tuesday.04.28.09 I am extremely pleased to hear that you took home some sense of gratification and inspiration from Steffan's talk last week. As the saying goes, "One man's trash..." I agree that Steffan's approach of "Using the seven deadly sins minus murder" to sell products does not make advertising inherently immoral. In fact, by and large those are the motivating factors behind most human behavior and some of the most successful ad campaigns. I also agree with your examples of using less than "honorable" impulses to promote socially respectable causes (although I'm not sure how “Own your C” uses sloth to create a culture/belief system). What I do disagree with, however, is Postaer's blanket statement that all advertising does is "make you want what you don't need." Sure, in some instances that is precisely what advertising does, but having had the good fortune to be involved with a number of clients and campaigns that promote social causes and public wellbeing (most of-which have NOT been pro-bono), I would propose that we as creatives should aspire to make the public "need what they don't want." It's relatively easy to convince a consumer to buy another product from which they will selfishly benefit: new shoes, cool clothes, tasty candy, etc. I mean, we’re already conditioned to be a purchasing public, so getting us choose product X over product Y, or to buy more of product X shouldn't be too difficult. What is hard, however, is convincing a consumer to spend time and/or money pursuing an end-result which they not only may not want, but also may not see the immediate benefit from (quitting smoking, volunteering, donating money, etc.) An amazing example of making the public need what they don’t want is Chiat Day’s work for Unicef with the Tap Project. Convincing people to give up their hard-earned money for an end-result which they will never see is a brilliant feat of marketing genius, but I realize that these are my own personal takes on this game that we call advertising, and extremely idealistic ones at that. In the interest of full transparency, I was (and still am) the faux-hawk dude, and I wasn't pissed off about anything until Steffan failed to take a firm position on any of the questions I asked him. Perhaps I am demanding too much, but I feel if you are going to accept payment to talk on topics of advertising, belief, morality and society then you should probably have some fairly firm opinions on those topics. I have nothing against Mr. Postaer. In fact, I have a large amount of respect for him and his work and can only hope to someday have a similarly commended portfolio. I was merely underwhelmed by his presentation. That’s all. That being said, I cannot wait for the next speaker in the Outside Voices series. I think it is fantastic that the New Denver Ad Club is doing this, and even if the speakers aren’t always what we/I hoped for, they are certain to spark conversation and debate among our community and there can be no harm in that. |