Narcissism Is the Fast Food of the Soul
October 30, 2011 by Kevin Michael Gray
Today's featured subject is a topic not many like to discuss. The negative impact of ill-aimed advertising efforts. It comes from adbusters.org. What are your thoughts? Do you agree with this? Tweet your response (@futureagencies). Read more below:
Society has been discussing the negative effects of advertising for decades. But now, suddenly a real backlash is occurring with concrete changes emerging in countries around the world. Sao Paulo enacted a near-complete ban on outdoor advertising in 2007 and Spain recently passed a new law restricting advertisements that promote the “cult of the body,” including slimming products, surgical procedures and beauty treatments. Restrictions on cigarette and alcohol advertising have marked significant victories in many countries, as have limits on advertising on children’s TV shows. Now a report by the UK think tank Compass entitled “The Advertising Effect” is a bold call to further action. Compass urges radical new policies to restrict and control advertising, an industry whose goal they say is, “the creation of a mood of restless dissatisfaction with what we have got and who we are so that we go out and buy more.” The Compass plan of attack includes new taxes on advertisers and a complete ban on advertising in public places, all alcohol advertising and viral marketing. But it is their insistence that we outlaw advertising to children under 12 years old that is truly revolutionary. Warning of the role advertising plays in family breakdown, teenage alienation and premature sexualization, Compass insists, “Children should be protected until their minds are able to cope with complex selling techniques – they should be free to be children not just consumers.”
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