Bullying in Advertising

by Sam Van Eman

Transcript of this recording:

My daughter just entered middle school. It's the age of bullying, the life spell when kids find their way, sort each other out, make decisions about what fits and what doesn't.

Image by Chesi. Used with permission via Flickr.

Anti-bullying education has been a primary social focus in these first few months of her year. Videos, assemblies with outside speakers, a poster campaign, all of it to postpone the inevitable. Bullying seems to exist as an unavoidable rite of passage, a gauntlet for punishers and those who run between them. Both parties could use the extra help.

I'd like to think we grow out of this painful activity, but election year competition proves we don't. Stand-up comedy sarcasm proves we don't. Prime Time elimination shows prove we don't, especially when nationally televised audiences inflict flagrant disapproval upon the serious souls who risk self-esteem to stand before them.

And what of advertising? One print ad for Nike lacrosse cleats reads, "Made with absolutely positively no regard for your opponent's feelings." Blatancy looks more like exaggerated humor than bullying. I knew a lacrosse player who beat his head against the wall before games to stimulate adrenaline. If he thinks a shoe will boost his dominance over competitors (who wear the same laced promise), who can reason with him? He's a bully who feeds on being bullied.

Advertising works more often in subtleties. Though not regarded as a chief perpetrator of meanness, advertising—the sort we criticize for doing harm in the world—leaves its mark, whittling with a slow and consistent stroke. Consider the following example.

A magazine advertisement for the 2013 Lexus ES states, "May cause technolust." Creatively poignant, this phrase, though it is unclear who it marks as the target. Let's say it's you, the buyer on the lot. Lust is a longing for something you haven't got. You haven't got the all-new, tech-loaded Lexus ES. Lexus makes a light pass at your current status, and insecurity stirs beneath the surface. The seemingly benign expression resembles little of real bullying, perhaps confirming why the insult earns our pardon, if we have caught on to its malice at all.

Lexus 1, Consumer 0.

Now let's say it's your friend, not you, with the technolust. You converted $40,000 into magnificent wheels, and the showroom still lingers in the seat leather and bamboo trim around you. Your friend slides in and sins a little.

Lexus 2, Consumer 1, Friend 0.

Lexus gives you permission to do this stirring. You're nice about it, of course. Your friend is your friend. But condescension is never kind. Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn, we're told. Instead, Lexus says, Rejoice when others mourn, mourn when others rejoice. 

Causing technolust isn't giving someone a swirly; it is a pricking we tolerate because it feels mild, clever even.

The call to become good neighbors requires abstinence, a willingness to set aside predictable factors that aggravate others' weaknesses. I can't stop advertisers from bullying. But I can refuse to play the accomplice; the bully who feeds on bullying. And maybe, if I employ some of the tools my daughter and her friends are learning in middle school this year, I can learn to ignore the pricking. Enough of us doing the same might even make the bullies go away.         

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Book Publicity as a Cultural Act

Image by Mikko Saari.

I needed a Stephanie Smith about seven years ago, before I gave up on publicity and a book I felt compelled to share with the world. It is what it is now, but I'm encouraged to know that service is her focus in a world of too many self-serving, megaphone-toting, insecurity-driven authors. I am happy to share her marketing view with you this morning at TheHighCalling.org:

"In between the dozens of drafts and the time their magnum opus hits the printer, some authors get cold feet. They feel it’s still an important book, but suddenly, to spread the word about it through a publicity campaign would be disingenuous. Suddenly, it’s not God’s message, but 'self-promotion.' They feel more comfortable in the high art of the writing process, and want to leave the 'dirty work' of promotion to me.

I count it my professional privilege to debunk this illusion. I understand that when you’ve poured so much of yourself into a work, it becomes harder to discern the lines between yourself and your art, and easier to equate book promotion with self-promotion. But these don’t have to be one and the same. What often makes the difference is our motives: Are we serving ourselves, or are we serving an idea that we believe will influence lives for the better?"

READ MORE about Stephanie's philosophy in Everything Matters: Book Publicity as a Cultural Act.

TheHighCalling.org is a site about faith, work, and God.

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Pepperidge Farms and Fame-lust

by Sam Van Eman

Transcript for this recording:

Henri Nouwen once spent seven months in a Trappist monastery in an attempt to escape from his fame-lust; to find, as he put it, "a quiet stream underneath the fluctuating affirmations and rejections of my little world" (The Genesee Diary, 14). While in the monastery, Nouwen worked on their assembly line which produced 15,000 loaves of raisin bread (Monk's Bread) each week.

Consider this journal entry about an observation he made:

"Theodore found a little piece of metal between the thousands of raisins he pushed through the raisin washing machine. He showed it to me. It looked as sharp as a razor blade. Well, someone eating his raisin bread is saved from a bleeding stomach, thanks to Theodore, who will never hear a grateful word for it. That is the drawback of preventative medicine" (112). 

Drawback of preventative medicine? Yikes. This is exactly why someone with fame-lust like Nouwen's needs a time out.

But hold on a minute, Sam. You know precisely what he means. Mixed with even the few generous acts of your own—especially the unrecognized ones—is a hope for praise. You admire Spider-Man for his masked altruism, but you also love the moment when Mary Jane is about to find out who's behind all those good deeds. Don't be too quick to judge.

The Pepperidge Farms magazine advertisement here says, "We're bakers. But we're parents, too. That's why we bake our wholesome bread the way we do. With plump, juicy raisins, sweet swirls of cinnamon—and lots of love." I appreciate the heart at the center of this image. Maybe it's real. I hope, at least, that it's more than a clever graphic, because I'm sure that some of those who made this ad (and this bread) care less about the customer and more about fame.

There are many problems in popular advertising that call for Spider-men and women to address. And there are also many elements that require Theodores to execute selflessly, year after year. Theodores may need to extract the occasional metal shard, but their main focus is on "lots of love," and on the continual production of beneficial goods and services. Not fame.
 
Theodore found more value in making good bread than in heroically avoiding dangerous bread, or in people knowing he made bread at all. It feels impossible for me to be Theodore. Dreams of accolades and promotions too often over-shadow the importance of the work itself, and I find myself needing to remember why it's been given to me in the first place.

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Zits are at least 51 years old!

"I am so relieved to find a good acne product before school started!"

Olive said that just two months ago in an online consumer product review. I don't remember using acne products often in my school years, though when I did it was because all of the little zits that dotted my friends' faces would join together on my own as a singular grand finale; a geographically altering explosion of embarrassment.

So Olive needs some relief today and I needed it in the 80s, but this newspaper clipping for Sea Breeze answered kids' prayers in 1960. I found the advertisement in a newspaper we dug out of our chimney.

In full, it reads:

"Amazing SEA BREEZE, new brand of antiseptic skin lotion. It works wonders for complexion in just 7 days! SEA BREEZE wipes away the excess oils that cause ____ blackheads, whiteheads and pimples. It helps prevent ____ and conditions pores. SEA BREEZE kills germs instantly - _____ soothes your skin - never dries it, as so many antiseptics do. Amazing results are guaranteed - money back from SEA BREEZE if not completely satisfied at the improvement after just 7 days! Get SEA BREEZE today! Big 4 1/4 oz. bottle - just 69¢ - at any drugstore." 

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According to W, Sea Breeze started as "a cosmetic skin care brand originally launched in 1906. The Original formula was initially sold as an antiseptic for minor cuts and scratches."

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Check for $97

I've had an ongoing fight with an advertising book since October of 2005. I once believed in it, supported it and loved it. Others did too. And then someone with another opinion took over and after one brief paragraph the fight began.

"...simplistic...obvious...overstates...no startling features to distinguish it...." All punches to my fragile pride.  

Tony Campolo had said it was "a must read for anyone who is trying to critique our culture and stand against its debilitating effects." Ron Sider called it "an important, urgent, penetrating analysis of how today's pervasive materialism seduces us and how biblical faith liberates us." The president emeritus of Bread for the World said that it was stellar.

I loved this praise. I had worked hard, cared deeply and had a grand vision of pulling materialistic America out of its blind consumption, and I wasn't alone. Jean Kilbourne, famed for her relentless and articulate beef with Madison Avenue since the 70s, stood behind me. She said I had done "a masterful job of demonstrating how the 'simulated gospel' of advertising perverts and distorts Jesus's message of love and compassion."

But insecurity confuses all of this. It doubts. It entertains unprovable possibilities. She was just being nice. He was paid to do it. He didn't really read it - just liked the title and first few pages and gambled on it being good. I've thought a hundred variations like these, all reminders that the only opinion I really believed was the one that started the fight. These were its offspring. 

One year after its release, On Earth as It is in Advertising? Moving from Commercial Hype to Gospel Hope went out of print. I tried to forget about the whole thing until, several years later, Wipf & Stock Publishers asked if they could bring it back on a need to print basis. I didn't really care. Sure, I said. I disliked the new cover (I care enough about advertising to think it should be done well). They promised a dollar per copy and I signed. And then I forgot about it again.    

This morning I received a surprise check in the mail. Without telling my youngest daughter what it was for, I asked her to guess how much it might be worth. She said $5. I guessed $4.

It was $97. I'm not sure what to think about having sold 97 more copies of something collecting dust on the shelf and in my mind, but I smiled. Then not two minutes later I imagined a benefactor had set me up just like Pip in Great Expectations; someone nice and in the mood to send me a hug. Another doubt.  

This post may amount to being the worst book promotion ever, but I set out to write about a fight I continue having with myself, almost four decades old, book or no book. I'm haunted by fear and the criticism that lurks about.

Don't buy a copy because you feel bad for me. I've moved on in other ways. But if you want to read a simplistic, overstated, nothing new book that is simultaneously a masterfully demonstrated, important, urgent, penetrating analysis (See what goes on in mind?), you can find reviews and sources for the original here, or buy it direct from Wipf & Stock.

Better yet, call or email my favorite local bookstore, Hearts and Minds Books.

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Where the Sun Don't Shine

Image from Respect the Roll.

As of late August, "Nearly 300,000 Consumers Have Signed Up for a Free Roll Cover at RespectTheRoll.com."

You've seen the commercials. The one where Eric, Amber and John discuss tp etiquette in defense of unsheltered rolls. And another, which I saw this past Sunday night, where an elderly husband and wife peep into a neighbor's bathroom, flabbergasted at the disrespectful practice of keeping their exposed roll on the back of the commode. (Not sure whether it's the neighbor's primary roll or the extra for when the primary runs out. Are we supposed to respect both? Just the extra? If both, what do you do with the lid on the primary roll when it's time to use it?)

TMI. Sorry. I know folks who find it grossly embarrassing to buy new toilet paper in the store, let alone talk about what we do with it at home.

I've never covered my toilet paper. We have a roll on the holder and extras under the sink. There you have it. And maybe because this has always been our practice, these commercials irk me. They feel a bit like bullying: "What?! You don't ______? You must be a caveman."

Cottonelle has created a site called "Where the Sun Don't Shine Tribune," patterned after an online newspaper. Videos, Letters to the Editor, Top Stories, Current Weather. It has the same gimmicky 50s feel as the commercials. And based on the numbers, the campaign is working, with "72 requests per minute on RespectTheRoll.com at the height of website traffic." Either consumers think the available patterns will compliment their bathrooms, or they're looking for novelty in otherwise utilitarian quarters, or they really believe tp should be respected.

Do you use one? Should I? Is this an emotionally manipulative ploy to woo germaphobes (I'm one of these) or a worthwhile purchase?
  

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Look After You Leap

Image by Craig (lincolnblues).

My contribution to TheHighCalling.org this morning reminds me of how superficial I tend to be when it comes to visual judgment. So why am I not like this when it comes to advertising? I think it's because I'm jaded. Too much crying wolf over the years. I've been conditioned to approach ads assuming the bells and whistles are hiding something. And the more bells and whistles, the more hiding.

I know there's good stuff going on in the ad world. I just need more of it.

I walked past our girls’ room yesterday and saw a book lying open-faced in the chair. On the earmarked page it read, “By the time he was 57, President George Washington was completely toothless.”

Huh. Didn’t know that. Twice I caught my grandfather without his false teeth – accidentally and only twice. It shocked me both times. I’d seen strangers and National Geographic photos of people with nothing but gums, but this was my grandfather who had convinced me he had a full set. And a toothless President? Unimaginable.  

The trivia page went on to say that Howard Taft weighed 350 pounds on his inauguration day. I think I knew this and vaguely remembered a story about him getting stuck in a bathtub at a college where I worked. I wondered how these men came to power. I assume it was their work ethic, leadership potential, articulation, social influence, political savvy…all the skills a public figure needs. It certainly couldn’t have been appearance because we’d never elect to President a man (or woman) with either of these physical characteristics.

"Love your neighbors for who they are on the inside," we’re told. "Don’t judge a book by its cover." Who really takes this advice? We’re a vain lot and research shows that nothing escapes our biases: gender, age, race, looks. Even as a follower of Christ, my narrow band of preference overrides what I’d like to think is Spock logic....

   
Read the rest here.


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The value of babies and stuff

I received a New Baby announcement in the mail this week. It came from good friends and I was happy to hear the news. In crude terms, the card was a simple advertisement. The family told us about their product: a beautiful child, a boy; and inferred the benefits of welcoming him into our lives: happiness, hope, reminder of new life...

Of course, I don't see their child as a product, and the card did not strike me as advertising in any of the disordered ways we may be influenced to consume. In fact, the following thoughts came to mind only after it sat on my desk for several days in a moment when I was reflecting on two general characteristics of advertising:

1) Declaration of value.
2) Invitation to enjoy this value.

I'm pretty sure all advertising performs these two basic functions. In a similar way, so does the baby card. What perplexed me was why advertising doesn't work more often like the card, or, more clearly said, why the card doesn't feel like an advertisement at all, even if it (generally) acts like one.

Here's a partial reason for the difference. Actually two. Advertising veers away from the beauty of my friends' announcement when it commits either or both of these offenses: 1) The declaration of value fails to match the delivery of value. 2) The values we are invited to enjoy fail at being valuable.

In the first, I'm mislead; in the second, mistreated.

Mislead
Years ago, I bought a camping tent that promised durability. I expected this value to come with the declaration. It didn't. I'm quite particular with my belongings and have made this tent work - without failure - for many years. However, sans meticulous care, it would have failed soon after we got it, and I think about this point every time I set it up and tear it down. I was mislead because of the conflict between declaration and delivery. The declaration of value failed to match the delivery of value.

Mistreated 
It's true that, in a sense, my poor tent value is a form of customer mistreatment. But I wasn't completely mistreated because I wasn't completely mislead. Do you follow? It has been a great tent and, though I've had to be extra gentle, it still does what a tent is supposed to do. I was only mislead on the one point about durability. So a more poignant example of mistreatment can be seen in this Nissan advertisement:

They're being partly facetious, but no copy editor would choose to write "Envy. Terrible to feel. Wonderful to provoke." if a significant percentage of car buyers wasn't actually motivated by insecurity. I've whined about bullying before and I'll do it again now. Companies have control over customer treatment, especially when it comes to the messages they use to declare and invite via advertising. Bullying always mistreats. It may, in a roundabout way, state a deliverable value, but the end doesn't justify the means.

In the case of this magazine ad, I'm mistreated as a customer because the value - making others jealous - is all chaff and no wheat. My insecurity may perceive this promise as worthwhile, but it really isn't. The value we're invited to enjoy fails at being valuable.

Obviously tents and sedans can't be compared with children, but a truth remains. We admire companies that exceed our value expectations and treat us with human dignity, which is exactly what my friends' New Baby card did. It pointed to value I can't possibly estimate and made me enjoy being human.

What if all advertising did this?

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Me Monster

I love Brian Regan's description of the "Me Monster." He nails it for me. And hearing from others, he nails it for them, too.

Advertisers don't get the spotlight very often, but that just means they have to outdo the next guy's creativity, or the next agency's account productivity, or the next manager's public influence, to get their fix. We all want affirmation, but often our quest for attention turns into a trampling exercise driven by insecurities.

I write for High Calling Blogs and last week I shared a story about the Me Monster that you might find encouraging as you deal with your own Me Monster:

David has gone to the same camp for the past nine years. He worked his way up the ranks of awards and badges each summer, impressing counselors and cabin mates. He’s a genuinely good kid and was simply doing what his parents taught him. Last year he received the coveted Teepee pendant, a sure indication that as a camper he had a shot at the granddaddy of them all: the Tomahawk Award.

Only one senior is eligible and he had this final summer to do it... [Read more and watch Brian's video here.]

High Calling Blogs is part of The High Calling, a site about work, life and God.

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Man Step or Functionality? The Masculinity Divide

I'm guessing you've seen the now older Chevy Silverado's "Man Step" and the cruelty involved, especially toward a guy who has that much trouble on a ladder. Here it is in case you haven't:

Now here's something you may not have seen. Watch the first 35 seconds to see Howie react very differently to truck bed assistance:



The inconsistency from "Man Step" to "EZ Lift Tailgate" looks a lot like what I saw in the line-up of this year's Super Bowl commercials. Both contained a hodgepodge commentary on masculinity. As I wrote in the comments of Dove Men+Care and Fight Clubs,

You had Tim Tebow promoting life and Dante's Inferno taking life, David Letterman - in my opinion - reconciling with Jay Leno but doing so behind a macho facade of teasing, Men+Care body wash by Dove, men literally without pants and men figuratively "without pants" but who still got to have their manly Dodge Charger....

Are these spots and the ones above aimed at different men, or the two sides of all men? I don't appreciate Howie's bullying but his apparent ambivalence points to an increasingly acceptable hodgepodge. It could be just a marketing thing, or perhaps an indication of a growing masculinity divide.

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Dove Men+Care and Fight Clubs

Looks like the drumbeat of John Eldredge's hyper-masculine book, Wild at Heart, is gaining ground. Segments of the evangelical church have been calling men to become Bravehearts and Gladiators ever since the book hit the bookstores and now we have to contend with the rising popularity of fight club ministries. Unbelievable.

Meanwhile, Dove is helping men get in touch with their feminine side with Men+Care. Here's the ad they launched through The Ogilvy Group in yesterday's Superbowl.



What's a guy to do?

Related articles:
A Jesus for Real Men
Men (Manly Men)

Hat tip to CaPC for the fight club article.

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Personal Brand Insecurity

I have a branding dilemma and I'm not sure if it's something minor or a symptom of something major. Ready for this?

Should I use caps or lower-case?

You can roll your eyes all you want, but it's a question that's starting to bother me. Stay with me for a minute. The internet has plenty of presentation norms and I know what most of them are. At the very least I know that web pages for business executives have significantly different norms than chat messages between teens.

case for lower
but i don't want to use capital letters. lower-case is more relaxed; more personal. it's how i want you to feel when you come over for dinner. you might think it's the finest table and tastiest food, but i want you to wander around the house if you'd like, get something from the fridge, or laugh out loud. lower-case is more my style.

lower-case is also easier, which means it's what i'd rather do. same point, less time.

Case for Upper
But I don't want to use lower-case either - at least not for writing. When I read through a dozen comments on a blog and one is written in lower-case, I skip that one or else put a lower value on it. I can't help thinking the writer is less educated. How arrogant, you say. Well I'll add hypocritical, too, since I e-mail almost exclusively in lower-case!

Caps are also more professional and readable. I can imagine my second-grader trying to read a chapter book with no capital letters. Talk about run-ons.

A diagnosis
For you non-analyzing types, you can't believe this is anything but a joke. But for me, a writer and speaker who mixes with a variety of audiences, this is only partly funny. I don't toss and turn or seek counseling over it, but it crosses my mind subtly every time I log on and start to type.

This constant e-wareness of whether to use caps or lower-case is why I think it is a symptom of something more serious. See, I'm the guy who reads Henri Nouwen's books, like Reaching Out or The Genesee Diary, and says, "Henri knows me." I'm the guy who reads Brennan Manning's Abba's Child and passes it on to all my friends. (Notice the link? I'm passing it along. Check out the others while you're at it.) I think I'm suffering from a case of Personal Brand Insecurity and I'm sure it's affecting my work.

PBI isn't just about what letter forms I should use. It is about searching for who I am, trying to find my voice, and wanting to care less about people's impressions and more about what matters. In C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, the demon uncle gives the following advice to his apprenticing demon nephew:

"The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring twopence what other people say about it, is by that very fact forearmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack. You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favour of the 'best' people, the 'right' food, the 'important' books. I have known a human defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions."

As I think about branding, advertising and all aspects of marketing, I wonder how someone like me could do it consistently and honestly while suffering from PBI. I applaud all of you who can.

Any advice? (About caps or lower-case, I mean, although PBI counsel is welcomed, too.)

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