Advertising – an oppressive manifestation of capitalism?

Associated media

Should consumers actively resist the appeal of the advertisement?

Advertising as Culture, edited by Chris Wharton

Many of the contributors to Advertising as Culture patently do not like advertising at all, condemning it as an oppressive manifestation of capitalism, requiring active resistance from its intended consumers. Such unequivocal hostility from academics will come as no surprise to readers familiar with commentary from the 1970s: here, left-wing critic Raymond Williams’ books are a frequent point of reference. One chapter presumes to offer advice on the conduct of critical engagement with advertising, as routinely, already, approved by any number of university courses.

Advertising as Culture reproduces 2012 posters promoting Great Britain as host of the Olympic Games and discusses trade union demonstrators’ re-working, in 2011, of the 1979 Saatchi & Saatchi slogan, ‘Labour isn’t working’, used by the British Conservative political party in their campaign to defeat the Labour government. Interactions with sporting and other ‘event’ television, politics, music, film, fashion, celebrity and art (with David Bailey insisting that advertising cannot be considered art and the London agency KesselsKramer claiming that sometimes it can be) are topics consistently addressed. In one of two chapters about soundtracks, it is noted that the death of musicians ‘is a great advertising hook’, in various ways ripe for commercial exploitation. One might add that film stars have similarly garnered posthumous acclaim through their appearance in ads.

Online interactions with ads are the most recent development in a long history, back and forth (as contributor Malcolm Gee comments) of appropriations, artistic and otherwise, of advertising copy and iconography. Similarly, one might say, volunteering ones family for an Oxo ad continues a longstanding tradition of inviting consumers to submit competing slogans for branded products.

Advertising as Culture is aimed at those interested in media and communications as social and political phenomena and usefully touches upon issues of debate meriting further, more substantial, investigation. It is unfortunate that, possibly for reasons of space, contributors’ lecturing assertions are so often allowed to pass unsupported by illustration or reference to primary sources – if not only because so many of the examples listed may well prove ephemeral. It seems impossible to imagine that there will never be more.

Advertising as Culture, edited by Chris Wharton, is published by Intellect, 2013. 229pp. ISBN 978 1 84150 614