Advertising and ethics?

[Tiassa]

Is there any ethical code by which advertising should be bound?

My current beef is an ad for Pepsi Cola (see MacNN for description) depicting Jimi Hendrix at age 11.

When it was Buick and the "Ghost of Harley Earl," I just thought it downright stupid. But the Pepsi ad seems somehow exploitative in a way I just can't tolerate. (Sad, as there's a 1-litre bottle of the stuff sitting beside me as I type this.)

Corporations achieved a new form of free speech during the Reagan era (1987), but I'm still working to find a link that isn't broken (the Google capsule suggests this article has the nugget I'm looking for.)

Generally, when I worry about advertising, it's the right of companies to utterly misconstrue products and circumstances. (There's a comedy routine somewhere about going to your doctor and asking for the latest drug that says you need it. "What? No, no, no. Actually, doc, I don't have vaginal fungus." Or something like that.) I worry about the right to blur definitions--anyone remember the "organic" food standard that was so awful that it was withdrawn? (See Golden Gate University for random memo discussing the issue.) Normally, I worry about what "free speech" for a corporation equals in practical terms. Generally, I leave the artistic to matters of taste.

But there are some things that, while you have a perfect legal right to do, you just don't do for matters of taste. And for some reason this "Jimi Hendrix" Pepsi advert crosses that line for me.

I realize that "nothing is sacred," but come on ....

 

[jps]

But there are some things that, while you have a perfect legal right to do, you just don't do for matters of taste. And for some reason this "Jimi Hendrix" Pepsi advert crosses that line for me.

I completely agree. I find this case particularly offensive, but I'm sure fans of any dead person used to shill a product they had no connection to would feel the same way. I guess Hendrix's estate must have signed off on this, so it is hard to make the argument that they shouldn't have been allowed to do it, but all the same, they shouldn't have been allowed to do it.

 

[Tiassa]

I'm not sure that the estate had to give permission for such a depiction. As long as Pepsi paid for use of the song, I don't see how depicting Jimi Hendrix in such a way is any different than Hendrix playing air hockey with Ben Franklin.

It becomes a matter of taste. I approve of the air hockey bit. It was a classic laugh. But hawking Pepsi? Why not just do a fake ad with Emma Goldman endorsing Bush for the November election? "A good man to make me want to be an American again!"

 

[jps]

I'm not sure that the estate had to give permission for such a depiction. As long as Pepsi paid for use of the song, I don't see how depicting Jimi Hendrix in such a way is any different than Hendrix playing air hockey with Ben Franklin.

It becomes a matter of taste. I approve of the air hockey bit. It was a classic laugh. But hawking Pepsi? Why not just do a fake ad with Emma Goldman endorsing Bush for the November election? "A good man to make me want to be an American again!"

I'm not familiar with the air hockey thing, but the problem with the pepsi bit(going from the description in the link, i didn't see it) is that it depicts hendrix as finding his inspiration in pepsi. That is unforgivable. I don't think paying for the rights to a song gives a company the right to depict the songs creator doing whatever they please, but I could be wrong.

 

[Tiassa]

I'm with you all the way.

The air hockey thing comes from The Simpsons #9F01 ("Homer the Heretic"); as Homer discusses the purpose of going to church on Sundays, they wander by Ben Franklin and Jimi Hendrix playing air hockey.

Quite obviously, I consider this--or "Homerpalooza" (3F21, one of the best episodes ever), in which Homer says to a veterenarian, "Got any messages for Jimi Hendrix?" and the vet replies, "Yes! Pick up your dog!" and the frame shows this decrepit dog in the corner named "Rover Hendrix"--fair artistic exploitation, and something far different from Pepsi's affront to the memory of one of humanity's greatest musicians.

I don't think paying for the rights to a song gives a company the right to depict the songs creator doing whatever they please, but I could be wrong.

I think it's two separate issues. Playing the song is an issue for whoever holds the publishing rights.° But the actual depiction ... that's a separate issue, and, unfortunately, I don't think it's any different from what The Simpsons do, or Family Guy or Futurama, for instance. South Park? Surely, if Parker and Stone can get away with their blistering assault against Barbara Streisand°, Pepsi can rape the memory of Jimi Hendrix.

I think it's disgusting, what Pepsi has done. It's one of those things that makes me wish there was a God so I could take comfort in the fact that the folks responsible for that advert are going to Hell, but no such luck.

As a larger comment, it's symptomatic of the age. One of the things about the 1990s that drove me further and further into my antisocial corner was the prevailing American attitude of, "We must simply because we can." That attitude has tailed off as the Bush economy has crashed into the ditch, but its elements obviously survive enough to fuel the might-is-right justifications for the American warring conscience.

Yes, Pepsi can. But I'm still wondering about what circumstances could exist whereby they should have done the advert.

I have no polite words for Pepsi, 100,000,000 free songs or not.

Notes:

° publishing rights - Ask Paul McCartney about Michael Jackson. Ask The Verve about "Bittersweet Symphony". (Do not ever buy the song; pirate it.)
° Barbara Streisand - See South Park #112 ("Mecha-Streisand") and also South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.

 

[SpyMoose]

How about when, I think it was verison wireless, used Martin Luther King Jr. In one of its adds? I was sort of surprised that there wasnt violence in the streets. What right in the world did they have to suggest that they are somehow linked to the success of the civil rights movement or one of its most powerful leaders? We really have become too permissive about this kind of thing.

 

[Tiassa]

Michael Moore pulled a couple of stunts that come to mind. Most terroristic was the time he took a garbage truck with an empty dumpster mounted on the front, pulled up in front of the house of the guy who owned a local disposal company, and used the hydraulics to rattle and bang and raise the dead at five in the morning.

Equally problematic in its method and logic, but even funnier because it was on Mercer Island (Seattle area), he loaded a flatbed utility truck with speaker stacks and charged them up with a big amplifier and went to the house of the head of Muzak and blasted him with elevator music at 7 am on a Sunday morning or something. (We have a peculiar periodic animosity toward Muzak up here, but owe it a great debt, as it's actually important to the "Seattle music scene" that exploded in '92.)

What I'm thinking of is something that we probably have the minds to accomplish here at Sciforums. We need photographs and a voice recording of the mother of an advertising executive. And then we just need to create an utterly crass advertisement, raise contributions, and buy ad space. But think about it ... you're some uptight executive and suddenly your mother is up there cracking douche jokes in an advertisement designed to parody a CrazyWorld anti-smoking ad, or being all belligerent like the "heroic" kids in the "Truth" ads.

I saw a PDFA ad the other day about ecstasy. I would love to make a parody of that ad because the point of the ad was basically to have the woman admit that she was too stupid to keep her daughter from harm. "When the coroner told me ... I said, What is ecstasy?"

I would love to parody that ad with the old cartoon hand and stamp come up and brand the word, "Moron" across the screen.

And then throw in some dazzling computer effects to make the idiot the mother of an advertising executive?

Why not?

Oh, yeah. Just because we can doesn't mean we should ....

Phrack!

 

[jps]

I think there is a significant legal difference between portraying a public figure in a tv show, especially a satirical one and using them to sell a product in an advertisement. If I'm wrong though, the stunt you described seems like a good idea.

 

[Mystech]

This might be slightly off topic, but probably one of my favorite advertising techniques is the "glittering generality" This is when you make a claim, or boast a feature of your product that is either entirely insubstantial or inconsequential. Examples of this would be Chevron now with Techron™ (wow that sounds advanced!) Colgate with Triclean™, or rebock shoes with the action wedge! Or other similar nonsense. Does tacking a few meaningless words and phrase at the end of your product make it sell better? I guess it does or they’d have stopped trying by now.

Reading through this thread I’m reminded of a fairly new Author who goes by the name of Maxx Barry (yes, with two ‘X’s, he’s a former adman himself) who has two novels out which include some rather humorous fictionalized looks at the advertising industry. He seems pretty reliable for getting a laugh out of subjects like these.

There are certainly lines of decency that advertising simply shouldn’t cross, and of course they’re crossed every single day. Part of the problem is that most large American corporations are becoming nothing but advertising agencies. Nike, for instance no longer employs anyone who makes shoes, that’s all contracted to Asian sweatshops (which they don’t own, so they get the PR bonus of being able to say that they don’t employ any sweatshop labor), all they do is “ad value” and increase their marketing budget ad infinitum, as promoting the brand is really all they’re in the business of anymore.

 

[SpyMoose]

yes, I highly recomend Maxx Barry's book "Syurp" its about somone trying to brake into the world of marketing, and it is hilarious.

 

[Oxygen]

I saw a PDFA ad the other day about ecstasy. I would love to make a parody of that ad because the point of the ad was basically to have the woman admit that she was too stupid to keep her daughter from harm. "When the coroner told me ... I said, What is ecstasy?"

I would love to parody that ad with the old cartoon hand and stamp come up and brand the word, "Moron" across the screen.

I'd like to parody that first paragraph in a reallllllllly sick porno... ("Just lay down on this empty slab right next to your dead daughter, and let the Doctor show you what real ecstasy is..." cue music...)

Regarding Pepsi's commercial, I thought it was funny. It was just a brief satire. They didn't present it as the truth and anybody who thinks they can get an accurate history lesson from a soda pop commercial needs help. Nobody complains when Mad Magazine does it, so why should we care if Pepsi does it? It wasn't slanderous or mean-spirited. I mean, if they really wanted to offend someone, they could have shown the KKK heading off to torch the Hendrix household, then have them all get distracted by a Pepsi machine, all the while still using the "Whew! That was close!" tag line. It probably would have been more historically acurate, because the KKK was burning down black people's houses left and right, but I doubt an 11 year old could afford an electric guitar from a pawn shop. Let's just be thankful they went with humor instead of accuracy. (I wonder if Weird Al Yankovic is going to satire this satire for Coca Cola?)

 

[guthrie]

Advertising has no ethics except insofar as it tries to avoid annoying a majority of people who can do anything about the company/ product.
Anyone read Vance Pckards book "the hidden Persuaders"
It was my introduction to advertising for what it really is. Its something like 40 years old now, and still relevant, although modern ads are even more sophisticated than then.

 

[Tiassa]

Got it. Birth control.

• Show a young woman choosing between Pepsi and Coke machines. On one side of the street is a coke machine with a preacher and a Christian rally outside a drugstore that sells condoms and has safe-sex and birth control advertisements in its front windows. Across the street is a Pepsi machine with ... James Dean standing beside it outside a pool hall. (Double up the offense, even.) She makes her choice, gets a Pepsi, and starts sucking James Dean's face. The caption tells us that this is (Pepsi CEO's mother) at age (nine months before his birth). The advertisement will be called, "Mistakes."

As it doesn't sell a product, we could buy ad space and run it as a PSA intended to educate people about advertising and consumer responsibility.

Anyway ....

This might be slightly off topic, but probably one of my favorite advertising techniques is the "glittering generality" This is when you make a claim, or boast a feature of your product that is either entirely insubstantial or inconsequential. Examples of this would be Chevron now with Techron™ (wow that sounds advanced!) Colgate with Triclean™, or rebock shoes with the action wedge! Or other similar nonsense. Does tacking a few meaningless words and phrase at the end of your product make it sell better? I guess it does or they’d have stopped trying by now.

When I was a kid, my mother watched soap operas. I remember when she stopped; she told me, even at my young age, that she didn't like them.

What I remember from that time, coincidentally, is my first questions about advertising. As I learned words, and my brother and I obsessed on superlatives, it confused me how every brand of coffee in a can, or every toothpaste could be "the best". As an adult, my habitual toothpaste is Crest, though my partner has this thing about buying the latest glitzy brand much like a child flocking to the grape-flavored toothpaste. This comes from some point in my childhood, my brother trying to explain that "Crest has a dentist's seal, and the other doesn't." Well, as we grow, we learn that to be the official anything of anything is merely a financial thing.

High school athletic programs cost too much in part because of a certain kind of regulation. One of the minor issues I'm aware of--all things considered--is that high schools adhere to a standard of the International Amateur Athletic Association in most cases. Now, here's the thing: many companies make equipment that meets and exceeds the standards. But the "licensing fee" for being "allowed" to "claim" that you are "recognized" by the IAAA is tall; it's thousands of dollars, and some small companies can't afford to constantly renew those licenses. (I don't know what the specific period is, but it does have to be renewed.) In other words, while parents and athletes alike need reassurance that their school is using acceptable gear, schools can still get better equipment for less money if they were allowed to.

Okay, one more:

• Center an advertisement around the theme of Jesus Christ being tempted in the desert. Several times in quick cuts, the Devil offers him a Coke. When his time is done, Jesus walks out of the desert, takes a huge gulp of a widemouth Pepsi and smiles to the camera; "Now that's a gift from God."

To me, there's just some things you shouldn't do in advertising. The Hendrix exploitation is just a bit tasteless to me. The logic behind the unwritten standard is that companies can't afford to piss off their markets. Otherwise, we could expect to see Jesus hawking Pepsi by World Series time.

 

[buffys]

Do you guys even see ads anymore? I have some kind of block that seems to have developed over time. As the advertisers get more and more desperate in their attempts to out do each other I feel less and less impact. All the "messages" just get lost in the din, I think a very significant change in the nature of advertising is inevitable and has to come soon because of this and things like TiVo.

As advertising stands today it can't offend me, I simply don't see it (the messages of individual products), it's just a shapeless, sensory blob in my periphery now.

 

[Mystech]

A rather humorous, and sickeningly plausible example from Syrup by Maxx Barry is a Coke campaign in which they take the statistic of some 12 deaths a year by people being crushed by coke vending machines, taking pictures of the scene of the accident and adding the tag line "Wouldn't you die for a Coke?"

You know, for a while Nike was really funding a program to look into the viability of being able to project the swoosh on the moon. Now, I don't mean to sound like Naomi Kline, but isn't that just a slight violation of public space?