Received an email from AdRants today that really made me somewhat ambivalent about how I approach my work in advertising. The article is about, how destructive the influencing powers of ads are in conditioning our perspective towards Life. How we are daily bombarded by high expectations of fake ideals that produced the confused and undecided souls that we are. I somewhat feel responsible for being in an industry that worships beauty and promotes ‘ideals’ however skewed those ideals may be.
“After watching Dove's new Ogilvy-created commercial, Onslaught, a follow up to Evolution, you might become a bit sickened you work in an industry that forces impossible ideals down the throats of innocent children. Now if you think that's overstating things a bit, just watch the new commercial. You know it's true. You know there are far too may "bigger, better, more beautiful, clearer, slimmer, fuller, trimmer" ads out there incessantly bombarding people with messages that basically say you're too fat, ugly, flat, dowdy, slobby for your own good and you simply must rush out and buy product after product after product that promise to turn you into a super model but will do nothing but drain your purse.
Called Onslaught, the commercial lives up to its name by illustrating what young girls see in the advertising we create. While we, as adults, may love to see images of beautiful people, we, as adults, know those images are unrealistic, unrepresentative and have likely, as Evolution illustrated, been heavily manipulated from their original state. Most young kids don't now know this...unless their parents tell then which it's exactly the message Onslaught delivers. Its powerful. Watch it and then think about it.
And yea, yea.. One could look at this as entirely hypocritical. After all, Dove sells some of the very products and notions it slams in this commercial. But we don't see it that way. It's sort of like sex. At some point, everyone's going to do it. They just better be well educated about every positive and negative thing that goes along with it.”
So here’s the said videos. The predecessor Evolution followed by Onslaught.
But then again, through all the fake intentions and misguided motives, there are ads that I somehow take pride to in the same industry with. Produced by good people of trying to really MAKE a difference on issues that could make a difference, these gems are really hard to come by. But when it does, it really strikes a chord and set me straight on my journey as an ad man again..take this next ad for example..straight to the heart of the issue and somewhat reminds us that we simply need to treat others better in todays world of hatred and indifference..
On a lighter note, here’s another version that somewhat proves that all hope is not lost for us in the creative industry namely advertising…
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