Watching part of Britz last night made me think about how the way you treat people can affect what they become. The drama implied strongly that if you treat minorities like terrorists you will actually force them away and give them more encouragement to do so.I started to wonder whether that is the same in adland. One of the things that most irritates me about ads is how many of them appear to treat the public as if they are stupid; as if they need everything spelling out and repeated s-l-o-w-l-y to be able to understand it. I wonder if this attitude actually causes the public to see ads as dumb, and not to read them with any sense of intelligence.
Does dumbed down advertising damage advertising that treats people with respect?
3 comments:
This is a really good post Rob and I agree far too many companies dumb down their communication.
For me it's often because they mistake a consumers 'boredom' [for their product/service/brand] for 'stupidity'
However the byproduct of all this lowest-common-denominator communication is probably dependent on the individual who is exposed to it so while some may start to see all advertising as stupid, in some cases some people may actually 'dumb down' because they are so used to being spoon-fed, that's the only way to get a reaction from them.
Maybe :)
Good point. "They don't worship our toothpaste therefore they must be ignorant" is a horrible but seemingly too common attitude.
(product chosen at random there..!)
This is actually quite reminiscent of the old Mass Society Theories way way back in history. Most of these theories believe people to be ignorant and unable to comprehend information. Therefore, a group of elites was established in order to send out messages. While I don't think in terms of conspiracies here, these kinds of ads are really far behind the times. Companies should really aim for more innovative and interesting ads instead of basic spoon feeding.
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