Comment: Advertising sucks – here’s how to fix it

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AdvertisingSucks_BLOG.jpgThis comment by John Grabowski, Marketing & Development Consultant with Peninsula Symphony in San Francisco is doing the rounds on social media and has got a lot of people nodding in agreement. Thanks to Peter Armstrong for sending it to us.

Advertising hasn’t been this bad since the late 70s-early 80s. I am astonished that in this time of unbridled capitalism and marketing mania, the quality of ads everywhere is terrible. Abysmal. And then advertisers and their clients are worried because people are installing ad blockers on their devices in record numbers? They’re concerned that nearly half of cell-phone clicks are, according to one study, an accident, a result of pudgy fingers trying to find that teeny-tiny “X” to close the box?

No, here’s what they should be concerned about: advertising and marketing today insults the intelligence of paramecia. Yes, I know advertising has always been geared to stupid. (“Double your pleasure, double your fun. Double your pleasure, with Doublemint gum.”) But there were also sharp ads back in the day, ads that said, hey, you’re a smart consumer, and part of being smart is knowing there’s a certain element of bullshit in life. And our consumer culture is so confident that it can celebrate even that!