I’m a simple consumer. I see a picture of food, I get hungry. A video hints that I’d be happier with a new sofa, I’m tempted. If I see a poster for something personalised — vitamins are a real kicker — I start heading to the nearest chemist in a zombie-like state.
It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, especially when I break off halfway through a discussion on the horrors of capitalism to fully take in the promotional campaign for a new sort of sandwich. I really wish I was exaggerating, but the situation is pretty dire.
Yet even I — a diehard fan of Things, an advertiser’s dream — have not been motivated to spend money as of late. Good adverts are few and far between, and there seem to be less and less that stay with you than there used to be. Maybe my brain was more malleable as a child so campaigns stuck with me more, but the majority of adverts nowadays are at best unenticing and at worst terrible.
The internet is now, of course, one of the most effective ways to advertise. Without ad blockers you’re constantly beset by promotions, endless companies vying for your oh-so-valuable attention. Some companies are taking initiative and using new formats to get their messages across, but some are, to say it politely, not.
But even worse than this is zero-effort advertising. I saw a company’s post celebrating the success of their iets frans… campaign, in which a girl went on a plane wearing some of the brand’s clothes, went to the Philippines, and stood on a beach. That was the whole advert. It was made in the style of a very normal slice-of-life TikTok, all filmed on a handheld phone with little clips of a suitcase going up an escalator interspersed with trendy high-angle selfie shots as the girl walked through the airport. Not only was it boring, uninspired and reliant on the freely produced videos of TikTok users for inspiration, it also managed to make me actively hostile towards the brand. Why even bother advertising your products when this is the best you can do?
There are a few exceptions to influencer-/social-media-personality-led campaigns. Bestdressed’s videos for Gucci and Maje have genuine artistic merit. They’re fun, and although it’s unlikely that I’ll be heading out to buy a designer bag anytime soon I enjoy watching her creativity in action. These are openly and unashamedly adverts, but they’ve had thought put into them and they’re more than just a rehash of whatever the latest meme format is or a dull attempt to be fun and relatable. There’s a story to them.
Although I do actually enjoy these short-film-style videos, I recently spoke with someone who worked in advertising, specialising in TikTok videos. She explained how ads now no longer need to look like adverts — instead, they need to look natural, appear as content independent from the brand. I felt a growing sense of unease as I learned more about the process, adverts being hidden behind dog videos or comedy sketches.
Particularly when marketing to a younger audience, as apps like TikTok do, this non-entertainment is undoubtedly unethical. Obviously, in the eyes of advertisers, children are an important segment to market to — they can annoy their parents no end with jingles and continuous demands for whatever the latest it-item is. But low-effort ‘entertainment’ designed to draw kids in before they even realise what’s going on is, for lack of a better word, icky. It’s not the abrasive crusade of a Lelli Kelly ad campaign (the cutest shoes, oh yeah!); these videos are less interesting, less thought-out and more subtly manipulative.
Adverts are inevitable, but it would be nice if they weren’t so invasive. Even product placement is more subtle — I’d take the shoehorned-in Stranger Things Coke mentions over a poorly made iPhone video trying to sell me a disco light.
So, we seem to be stuck between adverts that are either frustratingly bland or just plain annoying, with only a few standing out as being genuinely well-made. Maybe I should see this as a win for the slow decline of capitalism or something, but to be honest it’s just making my morning commute and absentminded social media scroll just a little less interesting.
When big-shot film directors are willing to lead an advertising campaign (Edgar Wright seems to be a fan of this kind of work), it should be a sign that it’s a creative form that deserves respect. It’s just lazy to rely on other people’s content to get the word out about your product, acting like a ‘normal’ social media account and making money from trends that other people started for free.
I’m not suggesting that every advert should be made by some famous artist, but maybe if there was a little more recognition of the work that goes into making a good advert then we could stop this boring, boring conveyer belt of bland advertising.
At risk of sounding like an old woman lamenting the loss of the good old days, adverts used to be a lot better than this. There are museums dedicated to old adverts, collectors scouring the web for pristine examples, and greetings cards aplenty that are either facsimiles of or inspired by old ads. I doubt that the adverts we’re seeing today will have similar cultural impact. They’re either so fleeting and based on hyperspecific references that they’ll barely hold up for five years, or they’re just bland and immemorable. No one will be putting them up in a gallery, unless it’s part of an exhibition on uninspired design.
It’s almost as if companies don’t want me to give them my money. If this goes on much longer, I might actually start being responsible with my spending.