In the Seinfeld episode “The Airport,” Jerry meets a model and she shows him a
recent photo of her that appeared in Esquire where she is mostly nude, having
just stepped out of a shower. It turns out the ad is for jeans. No surprise. We
all know the mantra that “sex sells.”
Advertising companies have long
realized that the main subject of an ad need not be the product. Watch companies
show images of Mount Everest and sailing. Other firms pitch you a
lifestyle that goes along with a product. From time to time, oddly, some
products are actually marketed through ads that declare them to be the best;
Oracle claims it has “the fastest ever database performance.”
But there
is a new trend in advertising that, while it may not be sweeping the world, is
becoming more pronounced. It is the “socially conscious” ad campaign. In a
fold-out ad by Du Pont on the inside cover of the recent issue of National
Geographic, the reader is shown an Indian train packed to the gills. The ad was
specially designed for the January issue, whose main article was about
“Population 7 billion: How your world will change.”
Lo and behold, we
learn that Du Pont “has a rich history of scientific discovery that has enabled
countless innovations and made life better for people everywhere.”
The
company, it turns out, is not only making “higher quality food available,” it
also plays a role in the body armor that has saved “more than 3,000
law-enforcement lives.”
It is not clear what connects any of this to the
people on the train, but somehow the idea is that Du Pont is helping
them.
IN THE latest issues of The Atlantic and the Economist are ads
featuring a middle-aged African woman. It turns out that Chevron “helped
thousands of entrepreneurs get ahead with microloans.”
This woman, whose
emphatic stare takes up half the page, must be one of the beneficiaries,
although we aren’t told how. The Chevron’s slogan is “Big Oil should support
small business.”
But this isn’t the most egregious play on the social
consciousness of the reader. That award must go to British Airways, which
claims “the best part of giving soccer balls to kids in Africa is seeing the
look on their faces.”
What is British Airways’ connection to this? It
isn’t clear. The ad claims that “last year at British Airways, we put hundreds
of small business owners in front of the people they needed to see – for
free.”
And somehow this is connected to Tommy Clark, Grassroots Soccer
founder, who “uses soccer balls to teach kids in Africa about AIDS.” It doesn’t
really matter what exactly British Airways’ involvement is, because the ad alone
draws you in.
Every well-meaning person wants to portray him or herself
as saving Africans. Let’s be honest, we all know the photos of NGO projects,
volunteer abroad programs and anything connected to “save children” has a
smiling African kid, usually posing with a white person who has “saved” him.
So
these new socially conscious ad campaigns play on our society’s stereotypical
charitable views. There is definitely something suspicious about them. Who
decided that disguising an oil company or an airline as a promoter of aid to
Africa, and putting smiling African kids or women prominently on display would
be good for business? The companies don’t really seem to be giving aid; they are
claiming that somehow, by helping “small business” or inventing new products,
their revenues are trickling down to benefit people.
And this brings us
to the last problem with all this socially conscious advertising. It’s
ridiculous. I should want to fly British Airways, not because it makes me feel
that I, in some tortured roundabout way, am putting smiles on African AIDS
victims’ faces, but because it is a better airline. I should go to a Chevron
station because it offers cheaper and better gas, not because it supposedly
supports a small business in Kenya.
There is something to be said for not
buying from companies that are particularly heinous in their treatment of people
or the environment. But the latest craze is all part of an elaborate scam. BP
rebranded itself as “green” in 2000, when it replaced it’s stodgy shield with a
green “helios” or sun logo. In 2008, Greenpeace UK awarded BP the Emerald
Paintbrush award for “greenwashing” its image. Greenpeace spokesman James Turned
noted: “You wouldn’t know it from their adverts, but BP bosses are pumping
billions into their oil and gas business and investing peanuts in renewable
[energy].”
The logo became even more embarrassing with the huge BP spill
in 2010. A website called Climagegreenwash.org is now devoted to tracking
companies that fake their environmentalism.
What concerns me isn’t the
lack of corporate social responsibility; a company’s duty is to its
shareholders, customers and employees. What is most annoying is that this is
just part of a larger picture of misleading sloganeering. Whether it is
President Barack Obama’s platitudes and lack of policy (he won the Nobel Peace
Prize just for giving us “hope”), or all the lying NGOs who pretended to be
helping Haiti but merely served as outlets for unemployed Europeans to do
well-paid charity work, the new motto is “put an African child in the photo and
feel good about yourself.”
NGOs don’t help Africa, and neither does
British Airways, and yet we feel better about ourselves for choosing to fly BA
and throwing a few cents at the Red Cross, buying a book that is printed on
“green” paper and then eating some nonsense “organic” meal.
From one lie
to the next we go through each day. Socially conscious advertising is just the
tip of the iceberg.