subvert the advert
from issue two: by Vania Juchniewicz
Ever noticed the ads on the back of toilet doors? Of course you have, they’re impossible to miss. They’re usually at eye level when sitting (or squatting, depending on your level of paranoia). You’re a captive audience for the advertiser — you aren’t going to leave the cubicle for at least half a minute, and your attention can’t be drawn to much else. And what are they usually advertising? Tampons or sanitary pads, right? How clever — you’re possibly thinking about that very subject, and waddaya know? There’s a handy ad right there telling you which one product to buy. Did you ask to see an ad about sanitary wear? Do you have a choice? When you watch TV or listen to the radio, you can change the channel or switch off ads. But the advertising on the back of public toilet doors, like the advertising in shop windows, at bus stops or on billboards (thankfully absent in the ACT), is advertising which is in front of us whether we like it or not. I don’t know anyone who actually enjoys advertising. People don’t flip channels to watch commercials, or turn up the radio volume to hear them.
Advertisers know that in order to pay attention to their particular product, to notice it above the noise and visual clutter of modern life, ads have to be forced on us — like on the back of toilet doors. Another tactic of advertising is spoon-feeding. A good example of this is turning popular songs into advertising jingles. I used to like the song “Magic Carpet Bag,” but whenever I hear it, I think of the Mercedes ad on television. Never mind that the words of the song are somewhat at odds with the ethos of luxury cars. But I still like the song so I don’t mind watching the ad. Whenever this song is played on the radio, it’s like free advertising for Mercedes. Clever, huh? The spoon-feeding style of advertising is particularly true for advertising aimed at young people. Big corporations and their advertising agents know that young people — particularly teenagers — aren’t going to tolerate boring messages telling them what to buy, or be talked down to. So the message has to be particularly attractive to you in order to get your attention, or better yet, to get your attention again and again.
Do you ever feel as though adverts insult your intelligence? Or that there is just one damn commercial too many during TV ad breaks? If you’ve ever flipped the channel, or turned the radio off because you were sick and tired of hearing that ad again, then you’ve realised that your world — your visual and audio world — is being polluted by advertisers telling you things you didn’t ask to hear and showing you things you don’t care to see.
The purpose of advertising is to get us to believe that a certain product is critical to some part of our lives — clothes and make-up to our social lives, technological products like computers to our sense of being up-to-date, cars and stereos to making us feel fashionable and wealthy. They do this by using the tricks of advertising such as air-brushing models to make them look thinner or by using popular music. These tricks give the product a mystique that doesn’t really exist, to make it seem more attractive to us. Ads for alcohol usually have images of people with a funky, rocking lifestyle, grinning like this beverage is the best thing that ever happened to them. The affects of alcohol on the brain and body aren’t mentioned; the statistics of addiction aren’t mentioned. Likewise the advertising for a certain hamburger chain: the image presented is one of clean, family fun, not of their packaging polluting the world, the health dangers of their fatty food, or how under-paid and exploited their restaurant staff are. In a nutshell, the ads try to deceive us into thinking the product — and the company behind it — is just great. But when they are making money out of addictive behaviour (like drinking) or making us feel physically inadequate (when compared to an air-brushed model), and play on our fears (like not being fashionable enough), advertising is then harmful to the way we see ourselves and the way we prioritise our own needs (like: I need flaired trousers in that shade of red or I won’t look cool!).
We don’t have to suck up this pollution the way advertisers and companies want us to. We do not have to stand for being influenced in these negative ways. We can try to ignore advertising (good luck). Or we can take control of our visual worlds and turn these advertising images back on themselves. We can culture jam. Culture jamming takes the image of the advertised product and mocks it by using the advertising campaign against itself. On a public toilet door in Canberra, some clever person has used a pen to change the slogan: “This pad is so thin it makes the average supermodel look fat” to “This pad is so dumb it makes the average supermodel look smart.” This change not only asks us to question the quality of the product, but to question the method of advertising it. Why do they bring the word ‘supermodel’ into the ad? What on earth do supermodels have to do with sanitary pads? (They’re too thin to menstruate.) Perhaps we are supposed to associate the word ‘supermodel’ with a product we might buy. The culture jammer (the person who wrote the graffiti) has recognised and shown us that the only value a supermodel has is thin-ness; she could be phenomenally dumb and the fashion industry would still worship her. And why would we want to be associated with a product that brings to mind an image of someone who’s stupid?
Have a look around you. What are the images you’re being asked to suck up every day? How is advertising manipulating the way that you think? What can you do about it? You can be critical of slick advertising. You can ask questions about what you’re being asked to believe. For more funny culture jams and a heap of great info, check out the Adbusters website at www.adbusters.org.
