Advertising in Free Fall

Where has Advertising Gone? America’s drift into tastelessness
By Paul A. Herbig


Advertising has been steadily drifting towards the lowest common denominator. Today much of advertising is filled with toilet humor, sexual innuendoes, obscenities, and, in general, tastelessness, that thirty, let alone twenty, years ago would not have been seen nor tolerated by either consumers or companies.

Some examples should suffice. During the AFC championship game, a Nike commercial caught the attention of the nation. The commercial was of a naked man running around a soccer game during the game and the police unsuccessfully running after him. The punch line to the commercial was Nike Shox not shoes. Miller Lite played the Catfight commercial with two women wrestlers tearing off each other’s clothes to the cheers of the male audience. During the superbowl, one of the car companies showed two men in a car, one eating beef jerky who begins to choke on the jerky. After accelerating the car quickly, the driver stops suddenly and heimlich-like the food is expelled. At the end of the commercial we see the food particles slowly drift down the windshield in a disgusting display. Of course the youth thought it was cool. And then we have those great symbols of American culture, rappers rhyming obscenities while hawking products.

Why? Is this a thought out attack on American mores and norms as we know them? Not really. The advertisers are nor perverts or out to change American culture but are just responding to well-accepted advertising principles. One very logical reason being given is that with so many advertisements being issued daily (one consulting firm estimates each American is subjected to 3000 advertising impressions daily, up fourfold from just 15 years ago) and the consumer’s increasing ability to phase out messages, you have to stand out above the crowd to be heard. And tastelessness does this. The loudest, coarsest, most shocking voice does tend to be the one that at least grabs your attention for a moment. It may not leave a good impression for the product but you notice the ad and remember it. And for some advertisers, that is the objective. You live for the moment and if you can dominate the moment and have viewers remember you for that moment, you have succeeded.

The second reason is the ‘demo’ (or demographic) as it is called that Madison Avenue seeks. Youth has always been targeted by advertisers. The prime demographic category is the16-34 crowd. An advertiser will pay extra for programs that attract those sought consumers (look at the range of sit-coms during prime time, on Fox, on W-B, or MTV and it becomes apparent who the networks are aiming for). Where are the variety programs? Where are the programs for older viewers? They don’t exist because the young won’t watch these shows and the advertisers will pay top dollar for the youth market and not much for the seniors. It may not be fair but it is the way Madison Avenue thinks. If it is the youth market that is your objective, you give them what they want (or what you think they want). Which is toilet humor, sex, bad language, violence, and in general, tastelessness (Part of the fun of those items is that makes mature adults—read parents—shrink and leave as they are disgusted; and as they do the kids laugh knowingly to each other on the lack of culture their parents have, their inability to appreciate in-culture humor).

Now Madison Avenue can create what they want and yes, it will attract the attention of the youth, that valued age category. But at what cost? The increasing coarseness of commercials will only further alienate the older viewers (it is strange describing men and women in their late thirties and forties as ‘older’ but that is how the advertising world views them). Already many ‘older’ viewers have given up on the four or five major networks watching specific cable channels instead of those award winning sitcoms. Some of my associates tell me they have never seen an episode of Friends and are no worse off for not having done so. Sure, the young are the consumers of the future and whose buying habits are being programmed, but who has the current dollars and the greatest disposable income? It is us, those “older” consumers, that Madison Avenue has so conveniently forgotten.

A final word to Madison Avenue. Being forgotten can be a two-way street. You’ve already forgotten about us “old” folks. We can return the favor.