A few nights ago, I sat down to watch a movie on Amazon Prime. At the beginning, it said, \u2018This film is brought to you ad-free by Hyundai\u2019 and I found myself overcome with gratitude.<\/p>\n
I was going to be spared the usual slew of irritating, unskippable intrusions. And, thanks to a South Korean car manufacturer, I could now enjoy this film uninterrupted. A second later, I thought: \u2018Wait a minute. This is insane.\u2019<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve spent my entire working life in advertising\u00a0and I\u2019m proud to have done so. I loved being part of a business revered and respected for its creative ingenuity and cultural clout. It was great to hear people say, \u2018The ads are better\u00a0than the programmes\u2019 but I haven\u2019t heard anyone say that for years.<\/p>\n
Instead, around a third of viewers pay a premium to block ads from their screens. I personally could never do that \u2013\u00a0it felt disloyal and ungrateful to the industry that had given me everything. However, when Hyundai did it for me, I was punching the air with joy.<\/p>\n
How have we come to this?\u00a0Why am I rejoicing in the fact that I won\u2019t have to watch the very things I loved to write? What has happened to the advertising industry?<\/p>\n
As is often the case, its decline was slow, then sudden and mostly self-inflicted. From the early 2000s onwards, the business has been slowly stifled from the inside by droves of dullards who went into advertising even though it was a business to which they were laughably ill-suited.\u00a0Though what they\u2019ve now done to it is no laughing matter.<\/p>\n
Advertising\u2019s\u00a0primary requirements of originality, spontaneity and creativity were beyond them. So with grim, careerist determination they set about deadening an industry that once sparkled with life.\u00a0They forgot \u2013 or deliberately ignored \u2013 the fact that advertising exists only to sell things.\u00a0Largely unable to be funny or engaging, they tried to bestow an unwarranted seriousness and significance on themselves and what they did for a living.<\/p>\n
So instead of cheerfully selling baked beans and washing powder,\u00a0they started hectoring people about the environment, single-use plastics and other \u2018worthy\u2019 causes. They vaingloriously co-opted what they regarded as lofty ideals and seemed to wince at any whiff of commerce.<\/p>\n
Whereas advertising was always genuinely random, diverse and meritocratic in its recruitment, they changed that too. People have been hired and promoted for reasons, shall we just say, other than their talent.<\/p>\n
Perhaps now at\u00a0the beginning of any programme, we\u2019ll just have an announcement: \u2018This programme is brought to you ad-free by\u2026\u2019 No need for ads, no need for ad agencies<\/p>\n
You only have to look at most TV commercials to see the effect all this has had. Ads have become bland, unmemorable and\u2026 I was about to say \u2018functional\u2019, but since their function is to persuade and engage with consumers, that\u2019s the last thing they are. So consumers switched off and if other brands follow Hyundai\u2019s lead, they may never switch on again.<\/p>\n
Perhaps now at\u00a0the beginning of any programme, we\u2019ll just have an announcement: \u2018This programme is brought to you ad-free by\u2026\u2019 No need for ads, no need for ad agencies.<\/p>\n
It should be said that for a car brand, this is very easy to do. A Hyundai SUV looks almost identical to the equivalent SUV from Kia, Mazda or Nissan. All that matters is establishing the manufacturer\u2019s name in viewers\u2019 minds. And by bribing us with an ad-free movie, Hyundai did that brilliantly.<\/p>\n
Other products might need a bit more explanation but this approach still presents the advertising industry with an existential crisis. A brand is now advertising its products by refusing to show any advertising for its products.\u00a0What\u2019s more, that brand delighted consumers. So is this the inevitable consequence of the dullards\u2019 destruction of the business?<\/p>\n
I sincerely hope not because seeing really good TV advertising has always brought viewers a great deal of enjoyment.\u00a0Though now it seems that not seeing TV advertising might be bringing them even more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A few nights ago, I sat down to watch a movie on Amazon Prime. At the beginning, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-601745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}