Ad lib
By Khaled Diab
Want
to fulfil your dreams and be happy? Why not ad liberate
yourself today? Now available in convenient 30-second doses.
Beware of side effects.
March 2008
In a darkened cinema, as we sat impatiently
waiting for the film to begin, we twiddled our thumbs because the darkness made
it impossible to navel gaze. Resisting the indifferent glazing of the eyes that
usually afflicts us when the ads are on, we began speculating, in hushed whispers,
about what impression of our society someone from the past or future would
glean, if all they had to go on were the creations of the advertising industry.
Would they look at all the smiling, cheerful faces
and wonder what kind of drugs we were on to make us all so manically,
deliriously, pathologically happy? Would they see the ad before our eyes
claiming that Red Bull “gives you wings” as a
sign that we are a superstitious society which believes in magic potions that
can make you fly, or would they see it for the advertising bull that it is?
In Italy, Red Bull took the ‘miracle’ joke a
step too far and had its wings
clipped by the Catholic Church which condemned the rather harmless fun as
‘blasphemous’. In December, it withdrew a nativity ad in which there were four
wise men bearing not only gold, frankincense and myrrh, but also a can of the
energy drink.
Since freedom of expression, whose champions
were conspicuous in their silence on this occasion, should apply to all
cartoons equally, regardless of their religious colour, here’s a link to the offending ad.
Of course, despite the Italian overreaction,
most people take the magic of the ad world with a pinch of salt. And Red Bull
is well aware of this and has transformed it into caricature. Yet, what we call
‘branding’ and ‘imaging’ sometimes looks suspiciously like superstition dressed
up for the modern age, down to the ironic, post-modern self-consciousness and
humour.
At university, I studied economics and we were
told that advertising plays a crucial role in informing the consumer about
different products, enabling him or her to make more rational purchasing
decisions. But how many ads today actually tell us anything about the product?
Most, especially at the luxury end of the market, are all image
and no substance.
Every day, we are constantly bombarded by
thousands of messages telling us that this or that charmed object – be it an
alcoholic beverage, clothes, perfume or a car – will invest us with special
powers that will make us happier, more confident, more attractive, sexier, more
successful, funnier, fitter – veritable titans among the hobbit masses.
And our faith in the salvation of Consumerism
has reached such heights that we even have a high priesthood in the form of
celebrity endorsers. You, too, could be as beautiful and desired as Nicole
Kidman with a spray of
Chanel No 5. For the honour of blessing the holy
toilet water, or eau de toilette, the Australian actress ‘earned’ a
mind-boggling, record-breaking
amount of nearly a million dollars per minute.
Given how large the ranks of the priesthood
have grown and the lavish offerings they receive, in order to distinguish
themselves ads have been transformed into veritable advertainment,
which many people enjoy simply for their own production qualities.
George Clooney has starred in a series of
advertisements for Martini which try to be ironic and funny. There’s one where
he turns up to a party and is refused entry because he
doesn’t have a bottle of the cocktail with him. In real life, it’s doubtful
whether the worst binge drinker would choose Martini over Clooney, but there’s
no accounting for tastes.
In another, “gorgeous” George is done up as Clark Gable
arriving at a film premiere, whereupon he leaves his beautiful blonde date
stranded, drawn away, like a closet alcoholic, to a nearby Martini stand.
When he discovers there’s no ice to mix in his drink,
he looks around him in bewilderment, whereupon a female matador inexplicably
appears beside an improbable bull ice sculpture and, whipping the glass out of
Clooney’s hand, proceeds to castrate the poor animal, using his balls as ice
cubes. I’m too distressed even to begin to deconstruct the psychological
implications!
The ad world, in its bid to become more
inclusive is not exclusively about the glamorous and beautiful. There has been
quite an effort in recent years to put nerdom on the
map. In one ad
by Proximus/Vodaphone for wireless broadband
internet, a legion of nerds emerge, squinting, from their indoor hermitages
armed with WiFi laptops, and head for the local park
where they can socialise and surf.
Empowering one group can sometimes be at the
expense of another. Another advertisement in the same series has a college geek coming home
to find his mother has been transformed into a beautiful, long-legged brunette
with full lips (Oedipus complex?), and his house is teeming with her gorgeous
friends.
Although we haven’t moved away from
objectifying the female form, there is a trend towards an equality of sorts, as
the male form is also increasingly objectified, such as in Calvin Klein
campaigns, and even Coca Cola has been doing it with its hunky swimmer who turns
out to be a priest.
At one level, this is all harmless fun and
helps keep the wheels of the economy turning. But the increasing extravagance,
emotiveness and uninformativeness of advertising has its side effects. Advertisers play on our insecurities
and inadequacies to shift the products of their paymasters and, with the ubiquitousness and omnipresence of advertising, it must, at
some subconscious level, actually make us feel unhappier and less content.
As the 13th-century Sufi mystic Rumi
once put it, “… images are like shrouds, and one can hide beneath the shroud.
When the images are dispelled and the realities appear without the shroud of
the mental image, there is a ‘reawakening’.”
The consumerist drug is a potent one, but each
subsequent hit is weaker and less satisfying, especially as we discover that,
underneath all the iconic layers, we are exactly the person. In our
post-religious societies, perhaps shopping has become the new opiate of the
masses, giving them the patience and hope to deal with mediocrity.
This column appeared
in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 28
February 2008. Read the related
discussion.
ã2008 K. Diab.
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