Selective Amnesia

The war for on consumers.

You’d think that consumers love advertising. You’d think, even, that consumers couldn’t do without advertising. But you’d be wrong. Most consumers hate advertising. And, I am sorry to say that they hate it because we, the ad people, have thrown away every bit of respect we have for the consumers and given them shitty stuff. Oh yes, in many cases, it is the advertisers, the advertising agencies and the creative-folk who make consumers hate the whole thing.
See, advertising adds unnecessary bulk to a newspaper, clutters TV (and how! Five-six 30 second commercials for every 7 minutes of genuine programming), slows down web-site loading and covers up the sky.

But, it needn’t be so. Advertising gives consumers the choice. It gives them the power to play god. Figuratively, of course. But still…

Advertising makes people’s lives easier. I do think advertising is all about problem solving.
The problems of What to buy, where, when and how much to pay for it. And there cannot be a human activity that does not involve buying something at a certain price.

So, as I was saying, consumers mostly hate advertising. And go to extreme steps to a) avoid it or more dangerously, b) fight it and kill it.

Now, news from the world of advertising is, that consumers, along with activist governments, judiciary and certain other people have taken to arms against us. (No bushism, that!) Which means, we retaliate. And strongly. In the way we know best.

We turn it into a profound but fun comic strip. Here’s what Graham & Jamie, of the much too popular Words & Pictures Online, have got for you, in the WAR ON ADVERTISING-HATERS.

The story begins here. And continues here. While the plot thickens here.

And oh, perhaps, you might want to keep an eye out for someone familiar in that last episode.

All fun aside, (and yes, it has been fun) advertising is one of the most challenging professions I’ve known, (not the only one…not by far) and the most thankless. Which is why, when people work their tempers off advertising, and on the people who make it, I take it personally.

Posted by Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan on June 18th, 2007 | Filed in Advertising and Marketing, Blog World |

One Response to “The war for on consumers.”

hari Says:
June 19th, 2007 at 8:29 am
The reason I hate advertising is that watching a 1 1/2 hour movie on television takes nearly three hours, sometimes even more.

That day they were showing Shrek on Cartoon Network which is supposed to be a pay channel and yet, every few minutes they cut out in the middle of a sequence to show advertisements. They ruin the whole movie experience by inserting dumb advertisements.

Also if you ever watch a Rajnikanth movie on Raj TV, you will know what happens every few seconds. Rajni begins a dialogue—ad—Rajni finishes dialogue—ad—somebody sneezes—ad—song begins—ad. Well, I can understand Raj TV doing that being the cheapskates that they are, but not other MNC channels who have forced consumers to pay to watch them.

Somebody should file a PIL to prevent ads from being shown on pay channels.