From carrie at stayfreemagazine.org Fri May 3 00:34:30 2002 From: carrie at stayfreemagazine.org (Carrie McLaren) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 23:34:30 -0500 Subject: Stay Free! | 3 May 2002 Message-ID: Hello, another item from the last issue is now online: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/18/norris.html Advertising History According to the Textbooks [ by Vince Norris ] Reprinted from the Journal of Advertising, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1980 Introduction by Carrie McLaren A few months back, I was watching footage of chimps frolicking in Africa on the PBS documentary show Nature. This particular episode was about the origins of human sexuality. Evolution. So we had the chimps (including several females in estrus, with their ample pink bottoms) showing us what our anchesters looked like. Once the producers felt we had seen enough of that, the camera seemlesssly segued into another grassy scene: one with prehistoric, upright, hairy Homo habilis digging holes and groping for food, circa two million years ago. Now, re-creations are staples of documentaries. But when the Nature chimps magically transformed into beastly, costumed actors, something else was going on. There were no titles or voiceovers to indicate the switch from live footage to a dramatization, nor any suggestion at all that these were not actual proto-humans. For many of us in the audience, that point was obvious: Television did not exist two million years ago. So this "obvious" fact went unstated. This, ultimately, is the question that Vince Norris's article raises: What happens when the obvious stuff continually goes unmentioned? To point out the obvious interferes with the narrative and risks reproprobation. Call it the DUH factor. As in: cave men didn't have television-DUH! Or, in Norris's case, advertising aims to increase profits-DUH! Yet any anthropologist could tell you that this is largely how culture shapes its people: by turning certain ideas into unspoken assumptions. It is also how advertising shapes us. Few people, were they to stop and reflect, would say they believe ad claims; they would know that Nike products don't truly make a person cool, that Hilfiger is not the key to happiness, that Schwab doesn't cure anxiety. Just as most people, when they pause to think, would realize that cave men didn't have VCRs. And yet, the ceaseless barrage of ads and televisized images means that we don't even have to believe in them; through dominating the culture, they take on a reality of their own. Vince Norris wrote his analysis of advertising textbooks over two decades ago, yet his observations are as relevant today as ever. Introductory advertising textbooks, Norris discovered, provide scant economic history, and what history they do provide is usually wrong. Of course, skipping history allows teachers to get on to the practical business of training future ad execs, but, more revealingly, it allows advertising to be defined as essentially beneficient. Again and again, textbooks discuss advertising as a tool for creating jobs, lowering prices, and boosting the economy-every effect but increasing the wealth of the advertiser (DUH!). Thus, the "obvious truth" of advertising's profit motive becomes eclipsed through repeated euphemistic bullshit. Just like the televised version of prehistoric man, advertising textbooks obscure the very subject they aim to reveal. --CM ----------------------------------------------------------- Advertising History According to the Textbooks Studying a subject without an appreciation of its antecedents is like seeing a picture in two dimensions-there is no depth. The study of history gives us depth as well as an understanding of why things are as they are." Thus Brink and Kelley introduce the history of promotion. Seventeen introductory advertising texts published in the United States during the past 20 years were studied to discover whether their authors share Brink and Kelley's belief in the value of history. The research had its interesting moments but on the whole it was a depressing experience-especially if the texts are indicative of what advertising teachers know about the history of advertising, of what they think students should know, or even of what they conceive of as history itself. Of the 17 texts, most of which run to more than 600 pages, six present no history at all. Only three present more than 20 pages of history. The longest chapter, written by Brink and Kelley, runs 33 pages in a relatively short book of 490 pages. There is even less history than these numbers suggest, since one-fourth to one-half of the space in a typical text is given over to reproductions of old advertisements. More depressing than the small quantity of history is its poor quality. With only two exceptions, the so-called history chapters are not history at all. They are collections of interesting tales and sayings of such famous men as Dr. Johnson, Addison and Steele, Benjamin Franklin, and P.T. Barnum; there is almost nothing about the social, economic, and political environments in which those men lived and in which the advertisements appeared. The lack of historical perspective in the texts results in a na?ve and, indeed, incorrect view of the development and function of advertising. The most important weaknesses, which I deal with below, are the failures to recognize the existence of pre-market societies, the rise of capitalism, the Industrial Revolution's impact on society, the fundamental difference between retail and national advertising, and the nature of advertising as an economic institution. ADVERTISING IN PRE-MARKET SOCIETIES From stay.free at verizon.net Mon May 13 20:06:46 2002 From: stay.free at verizon.net (Carrie McLaren) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 19:06:46 -0500 Subject: Stay Free! | 13 May 2002 Message-ID: Hello, a few recent items of interest: "Nike Can't Just Say It, Court Rules" http://www.latimes.com/la-050302nike.story The California Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may be held liable for lying in press releases and other public statements. This means that Marc Kasky's lawsuit against Nike--for misleading the public about labor conditions in its Asian factories--can proceed. Hopefully this idea will catch on in other courts; if so, it would radically alter the balance of power for activists. Love those Europeans: "IRELAND: TAX ON PLASTIC SHOPPING BAGS. A 13-cent tax on plastic shopping bags went into effect this week, to be paid by shoppers and contributed to a government fund for environmental causes and waste management. The government hopes the tax will prevent discarded bags from polluting waterways and littering the countryside, where they are a common sight fluttering in trees and hedges. Irish shoppers use more than 1.2 billion of the bags annually, enough for one bag per person per day. (New York Times, March 8, 2002) "Truth in Advertising, part 3" Maybe you remember the "Truth in Advertising" clip I sent out last year satirizing life in the ad biz. Well, here's another scene from the same short film and it's awesome: http://www.avionfilms.com/BodySet.cfm?Page=directorinfo&Subpage=video&userID=44&Portfolioitemid=125 From the New Yorker: A young New Yorker filled out a questionnaire created by the ad agency for the New York Lottery asking what she would do if she won the jackpot. Her answer: "Establish a foundation that would deal with global environmental issues." It turns out that the agency used the woman's name and photo in an ad, but changed her response to read, "buy a car and a cute driver to go with it." http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?020415ta_talk_radosh Yes, dogs as billboards: http://www.nypost.com/business/41040.htm thanks, carrie From carrie at stayfreemagazine.org Tue May 14 20:56:20 2002 From: carrie at stayfreemagazine.org (Carrie McLaren) Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 19:56:20 -0500 Subject: Stay Free! | Urgent NYC Action Alert! Message-ID: * * PLEASE FORWARD TO YOUR FRIENDS & COLLEAGUES IN NEW YORK * * ??URGENT NYC ACTION ALERT!! Should NYC schools be sold out to marketers without a public hearing? Today, May 14, New York newspapers reported that the NYC Board of Education is on the verge of signing a deal to find corporate advertisers for the city schools. This comes as news to NYC parents, teachers, and just about everyone else except for the CEOs and Board Members involved. If the deal goes through, expect to see sports uniforms, gymnasiums, and buildings emblazoned with ads for Nike, Gatorade, and other corporate sponsors. WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP --> Call School Board President NINFA SEGARRA at (718) 935-3300. Let her know your concerns about public process and the commercialism of education. Demand that approval of the plan be delayed until the document has been released to the public and feedback has been given. --> Join us at the School Board meeting today -- Wednesday, May 15, 6 p.m. Addressing the Board in public and on the record may be the single most effective action that one can take. (Let us know if you're coming..) --> Contact Stay Free! at (718) 398-9324 or stay.free at verizon.net. We desperately need the support of public school parents. Let us know if you'd like to be involved and are willing to help. From carrie at stayfreemagazine.org Wed May 15 19:37:50 2002 From: carrie at stayfreemagazine.org (Carrie McLaren) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 18:37:50 -0500 Subject: Stay Free! | NYC schools victory! Message-ID: Thanks to everyone who called the Board of Education today, Chancellor Harold Levy withdrew the proposal for advertising in schools. That's right, muthafuckaz, WE WON! (at least for now) Those phone calls really worked! The Board of Ed will probably revise the plan and bring it back again in a few months. To be added to our special NYC schools update list, email stay.free at verizon.net. many thanks, carrie From carrie at stayfreemagazine.org Tue May 28 21:54:15 2002 From: carrie at stayfreemagazine.org (Carrie McLaren) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 20:54:15 -0500 Subject: Stay Free! | 29 July 2002 Message-ID: CALLING ALL ARTISTS, ROCKERS, AND CREATIVE TYPES Stay Free! is organizing an exhibit, to take place this fall in New York, of works that appropriate copyrighted or trademarked material. The event shall be known as "Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age." Perhaps the biggest name to throw out here is Negativland (who will be participating, yes), but we're looking for things in all media: zines, collages, audio, film -- anything that flouts intellectual property law. If you're not quite sure what I mean, see http://www.illegal-art.org for a couple examples. If you could recommend some exceptional work along these lines, or if have created something yourself, please contact us at stay.free at verizon.net. Or just send material to Stay Free! P.O. Box 306 Prince Street Station, New York, NY 10012. Items will not be returned, so please don't send originals. Thanks. The Illegal Art exhibit is being held in honor of _Eldred v. Ashcroft_, a Supreme Court case that will be heard in the fall. The case challenges the constitutionality of the Sonny Bono Copyright act, which extended copyrights another 20 years to benefit Disney et al. (Background: http://eldred.cc) OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST: Should the moon be off-limits for commercial developers? No way, says the Moon Society... From the Wall Street Journal. http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/public/moon.html "Yasser Arafat Potato Chips Unveiled" http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-egypt-arafat-chips0528may28.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dnationworld%2Dheadlines "Workers Contend Coke Sent Old Soda to Minority Areas" * http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020521/ap_on_re_us/coca_cola_allegations_1&printer=1 "Though Coca-Cola workers say that the drinks were as much as 30, 60 or sometimes even 90 days out of date, none contend that they posed much of a health risk. Soda can be old enough to grow mold without causing any acute illnesses. But soda past its expiration date goes flat and loses much of its taste. So the real issue, the workers argue, is one of basic fairness." [* This is the New York Times headline, not the AP one ]