The part played by advertising in modern life
This present age has been called the Nuclear Age the Plastic Age, the Machine Era, etc. Another good description would be to call these modern times, the Age of the Advertisement.
The ability of people to maintain generally higher standards of living than ever before, and the hysterical competition to provide people with what they may be persuaded to buy, have resulted in the high-pressure advertising which is so much a feature of our modern life. Our eyes are assailed by flickering neon, sky-signs — even searchlights piercing the gloom of night, slides and cartoons on cinema screens, and the ubiquitous advertisement block in newspapers and periodicals; all scream out the merits of products for sale. We are treated to the sight of sandwich-men and to similar spectacles. Our ears are quite accustomed to the persuasive tones of announcers in radio and television commercials. Our arms are loaded with samples. And our minds are dazed by the continuous, planned assaults of the advertising agent.
Sometimes, we feel sickened by all this emphasis on our material wants. The purposes of the advertiser is to create the impression of a need in the mind of the prospective customer. In many cases, the aim is to arouse a feeling of covetousness. Buy a bridge — you can afford it on the never-never system ! Buy a car — the latest, with all its gadgets ! Buy new furniture, luxury gods, buy, buy, buy ! The appeal is the instinct to keep up with the Jounces.
Soon the poor consumer gets into debt, taking years — even a life-time, to pay of the installments on stuff he could have done well without. The so-called consumer is himself consumed into a state of constant fretfulness over the serious monthly inroads into his income, and curses the times he was deluded by advertisements. One of the reasons for the neuroses typical of the twentieth century is the strain that comes from trying to maintain artificially high standards of living. And advertising has, I think, contributed to this strain. What self-respect can a man ultimately have, who has been lured by cunning advertisements into owing half-a-dozen sales concerns a total of a fair sum of money ! This habit of indebtedness, which advertisements of goods offered on installment payments inculcate, certainly does not conduce to attitudes of thrift.
The evil about many of these advertisements is that the consumer is almost helpless against them. They appeal to his most emotional and instinctive impulses. Many advertisement subjects, for example, come close to being pornographic. One advertisement, for instance, may show a scantily-clad lady smiling alluringly at a stricken newspaper reader or film fan, inviting him to light her cigarette, brand mentioned. what had the lady in her inadequate costume to do with cigarettes, anyway ? Ladies feature frequently and irrelevantly in all sorts of advertisements; even chocolate-box covers are not without a common display of simpering immodesty. And these are the things we buy for children !
Apart from this simple, basic illogical animal appeal, advertisements show extreme lack of good taste, artistically speaking. Art is either parodied or ignored in advertisements. One sometimes sees a work of art reproduced — the Mona Lisa, for example. But the Gioconda’s smile may well be broadened to show the brightening effects of the dentifrice advertised. Blatant vulgarity is a dominant characteristic in advertising. The part played by advertisements of this sort in modern life is, therefore, to vulgarize it.
Advertisements also debase music. Popular airs to even portions of classical compositions, are distorted and fitted with words calling the hearer’s attention perhaps to the quality of a particular brand of toilet paper. When a piece of advertisement music is original, it is tuneless and raucous. This sort of lack of artistry, of course, characterizes advertisements of all sorts: neons are garish, short advertising film sequences are sentimental in subject or downright ridiculous; in countries which have television, commercial programs are puerile in content.
Not all about advertising, however, is demoralizing. Advertising in itself has a useful social function to fulfill. It tells people what they can get with their money, and where. The fact that many advertise, their goods is economically beneficial. For people can get their goods more cheaply, if many sellers advertise for customers. But advertisements should be plain and tasteful. There should be no attempt to pander to lower tastes in order to influence choice on the buyer’s part. In fact, in certain countries, a certain code has been laid down for advertisers. It is in such circumstances that advertising can play a beneficial part in modern life. For advertisements can be presented in an aesthetically pleasing way. they can even be educational.
Today, in better-class periodicals like “Readers’ Digest,” “Time,” “Newsweek,” “Saturday Evening Post,” “Enquire” and so on, advertisements show a new respect for the reader’s intelligence and sensitivity. Informative material is frequently incorporated in advertisements. Advertisement Art itself is aiming towards standards of beauty that, we hope, will inspire general emulation. Thus, when we come across advertisements in good magazines and newspapers, we attend to them more eagerly. We look upon advertisements as guides to our purchases. If we cannot afford such purchase as are advertised, we can still treat the advertisements as a source of information, entertainment, or even of aesthetic delight.
Meanwhile much can be done to improve standards of advertising in all advertising media. Large-scale advertising has come to stay; it can stay for the good of society.
