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Ogilvy on Advertising — Chapter-19: What’s wrong with advertising?
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19 WHAT’S WRONG WITH ADVERTISING? Toynbee and Galbraith vs. Roosevelt and Churchill In my Confessions I quoted the classic denunciations of advertising by Arnold Toynbee, John Kenneth Galbraith and a galaxy of earlier economists, and wheeled up Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill as witness for the defense. Twenty years later the dons are still tilting at their old windmill. Thus a professor at the New School of Social Research in New York teaches his students that ‘advertising is a profoundly subversive force in American life. It is intellectual and moral pollution. It trivializes, manipulates, is insincere and vulgarizes. It is undermining our faith in our nation and in ourselves.’ Holy smoke, is that what I do for a living? Some of the defenders of advertising are equally guilty of overstating their case. Said Leo Burnett, the great Chicago advertising man: ‘Advertising is not the noblest creation of man’s mind, as so many of its advocates would like the public to think. It does not, single-handedly, sustain the whole structure of capitalism and democracy and the Free World. It is just as nonsensical to suggest that we are superhuman as to accept the indictment that we are subhuman. We are merely human, trying to do a necessary human job with dignity, with decency and with competence.’ My view is that advertising is no more and no less than a reasonably efficient way to sell. Procter & Gamble spends more than $600,000,000 a year on advertising. Howard Morgens, their former president, is quoted as saying, ‘We believe that advertising is the most effective and efficient way to sell to the
consumer. If we should ever find better methods of selling our type of products to the consumer, we’ll leave advertising and turn to these other methods.’ Few of us admen lie awake nights feeling guilty about the way we earn our living. In Churchill’s phrase, we just ‘K.B.O.’* We don’t feel ‘subversive’ when we write advertisements for toothpaste. If we do it well, children may not have to go to the dentist so often. I did not feel ‘evil’ when I wrote advertisements for Puerto Rico. They helped attract industry and tourists to a country which had been living on the edge of starvation for 400 years. I do not think that I am ‘trivializing’ when I write advertisements for the World Wildlife Fund. My children were grateful when I wrote an advertisement which recovered their dog Teddy from dognappers. Nobody suggests that the printing press is evil because it is used to print pornography. It is also used to print the Bible. Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things. Nobody I know in advertising would advertise a brothel, and some refuse to advertise booze or cigarettes. Left-wing economists, ever eager to snatch the scourge from the hand of God, hold that advertising tempts people to squander money on things they don’t need. Who are these elitists to decide what you need? Do you need a dishwasher? Do you need a deodorant? Do you need a trip to Rome? I feel no qualms of conscience about persuading you that you do. What the Calvinistic dons don’t seem to know is that buying things can be one of life’s more innocent pleasures, whether you need them or not. Remember your euphoria when you bought your first car? Most people enjoy window-shopping the ads, whether for bargains or for luxuries. For 40 years I shopped the ads for country houses, and finally saved up enough money to buy one. It is not unknown for an advertisement in a newspaper to be read by more people than any news item. When all the New York newspapers went on strike for several weeks in 1963, research showed that it was the advertisements which readers missed most. If advertising were abolished, what would be done with the money? Would it be spent on public works? Or distributed to stock-holders in the form of extra dividends? Or given to the media to compensate them for the loss of their largest source of revenue? Perhaps it could be used to reduce prices to the consumer – by about 3 per cent.*
IS ADVERTISING A PACK OF LIES? Introducing me at an Asian Advertising Congress in New Delhi the other day, the Vice-President and former Chief Justice of India said that I had ‘mastered what Stephen Leacock called the art of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it’. If there are still any natural-born liars in advertising, we are under control. Every advertisement we write is scrutinized by lawyers, by the National Association of Broadcasters and other such bodies. The Better Business Bureau and the National Advertising Review Board (in Britain, the Advertising Standards Authority) review suspected violations of the various codes, and the Federal Trade Commission stands ready to prosecute us for deception. ‘Caveat emptor’ has given way to ‘caveat vendor’. But how odd that the Commission does not monitor the advertising put out by departments of the US Government. Milton and Rose Friedman write, ‘Anyone who has bought government bonds over the past decade has been taken to the cleaners. The amount he received on maturity would buy less in goods and services than the amount he paid for the bond, and he has to pay taxes on the mislabeled “interest”. Yet the Treasury continues to advertise the bonds as “building personal security” and a “gift that keeps on growing”’.* ‘THE DIRGE OF OUR TIMES’ While very little advertising can be convicted of crimes against humanity, exposure to 30,000 TV commercials every year – the average dosage in American homes – suggests that Wilfrid Sheed had a point when he wrote that ‘the sound of selling is the dirge of our times’. When I lived in New York, I did not notice it, either because I was too busy to watch for more than half an hour a day (Walter Cronkite), or because I was corrupted by familiarity. But when I went to live in Europe, I grew accustomed to smaller doses of advertising. Today, when I return to the United States, I am enraged by the barrage to which I am subjected. And this does not apply only to television. On Sundays, the New York Times often carries 350 pages of advertisements, and some of the radio stations devote 40 minutes in every hour to commercials. I don’t know how all this clutter can ever be brought under control; the profit motive is too strong in those who own the media. In the average American home, the TV is turned on, if not watched, for five hours a day, which adds up to 25 years in the average life. But don’t blame the
commercials for this addiction. MANIPULATION? You may have heard it said that advertising is ‘manipulation’. I know of only two examples, and neither of them actually happened. In 1957 a market researcher called James Vicary hypothesized that it might be possible to flash commands on television screens so fast that the viewer would not be conscious of seeing them, but his unconscious would see them – and obey them. He called this gimmick ‘subliminal’ advertising, but he never even got around to testing it, and no advertiser has ever used it. Unfortunately, word of his hypothesis found its way into the public prints, and provided grist for the mills of the anti-advertising brigade. The British Institute of Practitioners in Advertising solemnly banned the use of subliminal advertising – which did not exist. My only other example of manipulation will make you shudder. I myself once came near to doing something so diabolical that I hesitate to confess it even now, 30 years later. Suspecting that hypnotism might be an element in successful advertising, I engaged a professional hypnotist to make a commercial. When I saw it in the projection room, it was so powerful that I had visions of millions of suggestible consumers getting up from their armchairs and rushing like zombies through the traffic on their way to buy the product at the nearest store. Had I invented the ultimate advertisement? I burned it, and never told my client how close I had come to landing him in a national scandal. One way and another, the odds against your being manipulated by advertising are now very long indeed. Even if I wanted to manipulate you, I wouldn’t know how to circumvent the legal regulations. Hold your horses – I almost forgot. There is one category of advertising which is totally uncontrolled and flagrantly dishonest: the television commercials for candidates in Presidential elections. POLITICAL CHICANERY While statesmen in England, France and Persia have sometimes consulted me, I have never taken political parties as clients of Ogilvy & Mather. First, because they would preoccupy the best brains of the agency, to the detriment of its permanent clients. Second, because they are bad credit risks. Third, because it would be unfair to those people in the agency who pray for the victory of the
opposing party. And finally, because it would be difficult to avoid the chicanery which is endemic in all political campaigns. The first politician to use television was Governor Dewey in his 1950 campaign for the governorship of New York. On one program, Happy Felton, the entertainer, interviewed passers-by under the marquee of the Astor Hotel on 7th Avenue. They would say what interested them in the campaign, and ask questions of the Governor. Dewey watched them on a monitor in the studio, and answered their questions. The day before, his staff had carefully selected the passers-by. They had told them what they were interested in, and rehearsed their questions. On the last day of the campaign, Dewey was on television from 6 am to midnight. People could telephone the studio. Four women on camera answered the calls and passed along the questions for Dewey to answer. A member of his staff was in a phone booth at the corner drugstore with a pile of nickels. Dewey, the ex-District Attorney, the battler against corruption, the Governor of the State, thought of himself as an honorable man. It never occurred to him that he was involved in deception. I doubt that it would occur to anyone, honorable or dishonorable, to pull such a play today, 30 years later. Times change. Dewey was a scientific demagogue. Before speaking on major issues, he used research to find out which policies had the widest popular support and then put them forward as if he believed in them. In his book The Duping of the American Voter,* my colleague Robert Spero analyzed the commercials used by Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter. He concluded that they were ‘the most deceptive, misleading, unfair and untruthful of all advertising … the sky is the limit with regard to what can be said, what can be promised, what accusations can be made, what lies can be told’. The nine Federal agencies which regulate advertising for products have no say in political advertising. The broadcasting networks, which turn down half the commercials for products submitted to them because they violate their codes, do not apply any code whatever to political commercials. Why not? Because political advertising is considered ‘protected speech’ under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. The networks are obliged to broadcast every political commercial submitted to them, however dishonest. In 1964, Johnson’s commercials disparaged Senator Goldwater with a cynical dishonesty which would never be tolerated in commercials for toothpaste. They gave voters to understand that Goldwater was an irresponsible, trigger-happy ogre who would start nuclear wars at the drop of a hat. Johnson was presented as a dove of peace.
What had happened was this. Goldwater, one of the most decent men in public life, had been asked by an interviewer to differentiate between the reliability and the accuracy of guided missiles. He had replied that they were accurate enough ‘to lob one into the men’s room at the Kremlin’. And he had told another interviewer that it would be possible to destroy the forests in North Vietnam by using low-yield atomic weapons. These were no more than theoretical answers to speculative questions. Goldwater did not recommend the use of atomic weapons, and Johnson knew this perfectly well. Nixon’s campaigns against Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern were less dishonest, but they too violated the network code for product advertising. Jimmy Carter’s commercials pictured him as an innocent newcomer to politics, with no political organization – a poor farmer with no money. Nothing could have been further from the truth, but the voting public swallowed it. Gerald Ford, his Republican opponent, used commercials which were relatively honest – and lost the election. The Kennedys and the Rockefellers have proved that it helps a politician to be rich. In his campaign for election to a second term as Democratic Governor of West Virginia, Jay Rockefeller spent $11,000,000 of his own money and defeated his Republican opponent, who spent only $800,000. Rockefeller’s commercials were unusually statesmanlike, and a survey found that the people of West Virginia were not shocked by his expenditure. Even his uncle Nelson Rockefeller had not spent so much in his re-election campaign for Governor of New York. In a period when television commercials are often the decisive factor in deciding who shall be the next President of the United States, dishonest advertising is as evil as stuffing the ballot box. Perhaps the advertising people who have allowed their talents to be prostituted for this villainy are too naïve to understand the complexity of the issues. The United States is almost the only country which allows political candidates to buy commercial time. In England, France and other democracies, the networks allot free time to serious discussion of the issues. Could political commercials be banned in the United States? Not without violating the US Constitution. Could they be regulated, like every other kind of advertising? That too would be illegal. Can you imagine Abraham Lincoln hiring an agency to produce 30-second commercials about slavery? DOWN WITH BILLBOARDS
Highways with billboards have three times as many accidents as highways without billboards. President Eisenhower said, ‘I am against those billboards that mar our scenery, but I don’t know what I can do about it.’ In California, Governor Pat Brown said, ‘When a man throws an empty cigarette package from an automobile, he is liable to a fine of $50. When a man throws a billboard across a view, he is richly rewarded.’ Bob Moses, the illustrious Parks Commissioner of New York State, said that ‘effrontery and impudence can go no further. The time for compromise with these stubborn and ruthless people is over.’ But the majority of legislators are still ready to compromise with them. Here is how a State Senator explains it: ‘The billboard lobby shrewdly puts many legislators in its debt by giving them free space during election time. The lobby is savage against the legislator who dares oppose it by favoring anti-billboard laws. It subsidizes his opposition, foments political trouble in his home district, donates billboards to his opponents and sends agents to spread rumors among his constituents.’ Says the New York Times, ‘The forces of uglification are rampant. The Illinois Democrat and the Florida Republican are united in their determination to protect the financial welfare of the billboard industry at the expense of millions of ordinary tourists who would like to see some scenery as they drive.’ The Highway Beautification Act actually states that it is the purpose of Congress to promote outdoor advertising. Some departments of the Federal Government are users of billboards. The Internal Revenue Service once accepted the free gift of 4,000 empty billboards and used them to urge taxpayers to make honest returns. One day Monty Spaght, then President of Shell, asked me, ‘We get a lot of letters protesting against our use of billboards. Do we need billboards?’ I replied, ‘If you give up billboards, you can still use newspapers and magazines and radio and television. That ought to be enough.’ Shell gave up billboards. Billboards represent less than 2 per cent of total advertising in the United States. I cannot believe that the free-enterprise system would be irreparably damaged if they were abolished. Who is in favor of them? Only the people who make money out of them. What kind of people are they? When President Johnson sent the Highway Beautification Bill to Congress, the head of one billboard company protested that Johnson had ‘taken a stand in favor of an abstract concept
– beauty. Some people like scenery and are interested in it. Others can take it or leave it. There are times when most people would rather look at posters than scenery.’ The Roadside Business Association has said, ‘We do not believe that everyone is for beauty in all things.’ On a Sunday morning in 1958, vigilantes sawed down seven billboards along a highway in New Mexico. Citizens of surrounding areas expressed support for them. One telephone call complained that the vigilantes had not cut down enough billboards, and another that they had frustrated the plan of a large group of citizens who had scheduled a mass burning of billboards for later in the month. The vigilantes were never arrested. In 1961 the Quebec government sent hundreds of men with axes to chop down billboards. In 1963 the head of the New York State Thruway Authority knocked down 53 billboards in a dawn raid; he was sick of legal bickering. But in June 1982 a judge in Oregon overturned an ordinance that required the removal of billboards on the ground that it was a denial of free speech. The battle goes on. CAN ADVERTISING SELL BAD PRODUCTS? It is often charged that advertising can persuade people to buy inferior products. So it can – once. But the consumer perceives that the product is inferior and never buys it again. This causes grave financial loss to the manufacturer, whose profits come from repeat purchases. The best way to increase the sale of a product is to improve the product. This is particularly true of food products; the consumer is amazingly quick to notice an improvement in taste and buy the product more often. I have always been irritated by the lack of interest brand managers take in improving their products. One client warned me, ‘You are too prone to criticize our products. We could find it easier to accept criticism of our wives.’ NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION Do you think advertising gives you enough information about products? I don’t. Recently, I smashed my car beyond repair and had to buy a new one. For six months I read all the car ads in search of information. All I found was fatuous slogans and flatulent generalities. Car manufacturers assume that you are not interested in facts. Indeed, their advertising is not aimed at consumers. Its purpose
is to win an ovation when it is projected on the screen at hoopla conventions of dealers. Show-biz commercials have that effect. Sober, factual advertising does not. If their engineering was as incompetent as their advertising, their cars would not run ten miles without a breakdown. When I advertised Rolls-Royce, I gave the facts – no hot air, no adjectives. Later, my partner Hank Bernhard used equally factual advertising for Mercedes. In every case sales went up dramatically – on peppercorn budgets. I have written factual advertising for a bank, for gasoline, for a stockbroker, margarine, foreign travel and many other products. It always sells better than empty advertising. Before I started writing advertisements, I spent three years selling Aga cooking stoves to Scottish housewives, door to door. All I did was give my customers the facts. It took me 40 minutes to make a sale; about 3,000 words. If the people who write Detroit advertising had started their careers as door-to-door salesmen, you and I would be able to find the facts we need in their advertisements. SUMMARY
- Whether economists are right or wrong in proclaiming that advertising is an ‘economic’ waste, manufacturers do not regard it as a commercial waste.
- Apart from political advertising, which is flagrantly dishonest, advertising is now far more honest than consumers realize.
- The world would be a safer, prettier place without billboards.
- The majority of campaigns fail to give consumers enough information.
I did not feel evil when I wrote advertisements that attracted tourists and industry to a country which had been living on the edge of starvation for 400 years.
My children were grateful when I wrote this advertisement. It recovered their dog Teddy from dognappers.
The Advertising Standards Authority is the watchdog on British advertising.
Governor Dewey, a scientific demagogue.
The bally-hoo of American politics. Should American political advertising have to pass the same scrutiny as commercial advertising?
In 1964, Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign was effectively scuppered by unscrupulous commercials put out by his opponent, Lyndon Johnson.
The ‘down-home’ image of Jimmy Carter’s campaign belied the reality – a highly professional, and costly, publicity machine.
When President Johnson sent the Highway Beautification Bill to Congress, the head of one billboard company claimed: ‘There are times when most people would rather look at posters than scenery.’ Notes * ‘Keep buggering on.’ * Automobile manufacturers spend 1 per cent of their revenue on advertising. Appliance manufacturers 2 per cent. Soft drinks 4 per cent. Food manufacturers and brewers 5 per cent. * Free to Choose, Harcourt Brace, 1980. * Lippincott & Crowell, NY, 1980.