Alien Blackouts
Advertising that catches people's attention is irreplaceable. Got that, lawmakers and clients? Otherwise, the advertisers will just go on strike.
Column Advertising is irreplaceable. Do you understand that, dear lawmakers and clients? Otherwise the advertisers will simply go on strike." A sociologist from Göttingen recently published the essay "World without electricity" in the NZZ. Modern civilization without its elixir of life: a threatening thought experiment about the failure of the seemingly self-evident and therefore worthy of reflection. Does the same apply to the question "World without advertising?" - is advertising the electricity of the economy? All wheels stand still when the advertising brain doesn't want to: is this analogy true?
Yes, because since time immemorial there has always been some form of loud advertising for and, above all, against something: politicians do it in talks, churches with holy bimbam and market women with shouting. For this reason alone - i.e. regardless of cluttered real and electronic letterboxes - the sigh of relief is not surprising: less would be more!
So isn't advertising also a waste of resources and partly responsible for communicative overkill? Especially for the fact that single mothers, worn down by the begging of their offspring, buy them dentist-intensive branded treats from their already tight budget instead of cheap and wholesome apples?
So be it: advertising is still unavoidable because it is irreplaceable for publicizing and maintaining market offers. But then please only for those of the right, monochrome variety - black in theocracies and brown or red in secular dictatorships.
However, such one-size-fits-all advertising only works temporarily at best and regularly checkmates those in power as a boomerang.
After all, it was not just the anger of the people of Eastern Europe at the mismanagement of the communist system of rule that brought it down. It was also their bitterness at the state propaganda's constant shameless denial of the dreariness that really existed. Where there is nothing to buy, there is no need for advertising; but scarcity of goods and consumption is hardly an attractive alternative for modern democracies.
However, there is also a capitalist counterpart to this, namely in the form of punishing unruly media by withdrawing advertising contracts, commonly known as advertising boycotts. Such partial advertising eclipses, decreed by hypersensitive industries, are of course rarely seen in this country. Fortunately, because the fact that, according to recent language, instead of "boycott" we are only talking about "the freedom of advertisers to do without a suitable advertising medium" does not make the matter any less questionable. Freedom of insertion and freedom of opinion are, to put it mildly, in a hopeless contradiction here. It would probably be more convincing - attention, an even more daring thought experiment! - if the much-maligned advertising went on strike of its own accord, i.e. boycotted its clients and the rest of the world for a while. As with so many familiar circumstances, the saying "familiarity breeds contempt" also applies to them. Why is the city suddenly so gray? Wasn't it more colorful? In other words: Advertising is also an integral part of today's everyday aesthetics.
What would even science be worth without self-promotion? Little, because it is not beautiful in itself. That's why even professors occasionally spread their feathers as columnists. But not too often! After all, this column was quite uplifting, treating advertising as sporty, educational, emotionally competent, politically indispensable, morally powerful and generally the best of all forms of communication (at least in their eyes). Have you learned anything from this, dear creatives? Exactly! So goodbye to the next columnist from the science industry.
> Ulrich Saxer was a professor of journalism at the University of Zurich and
Professor of Sociology of Communication in Lugano.
Yes, because since time immemorial there has always been some form of loud advertising for and, above all, against something: politicians do it in talks, churches with holy bimbam and market women with shouting. For this reason alone - i.e. regardless of cluttered real and electronic letterboxes - the sigh of relief is not surprising: less would be more!
So isn't advertising also a waste of resources and partly responsible for communicative overkill? Especially for the fact that single mothers, worn down by the begging of their offspring, buy them dentist-intensive branded treats from their already tight budget instead of cheap and wholesome apples?
So be it: advertising is still unavoidable because it is irreplaceable for publicizing and maintaining market offers. But then please only for those of the right, monochrome variety - black in theocracies and brown or red in secular dictatorships.
However, such one-size-fits-all advertising only works temporarily at best and regularly checkmates those in power as a boomerang.
After all, it was not just the anger of the people of Eastern Europe at the mismanagement of the communist system of rule that brought it down. It was also their bitterness at the state propaganda's constant shameless denial of the dreariness that really existed. Where there is nothing to buy, there is no need for advertising; but scarcity of goods and consumption is hardly an attractive alternative for modern democracies.
However, there is also a capitalist counterpart to this, namely in the form of punishing unruly media by withdrawing advertising contracts, commonly known as advertising boycotts. Such partial advertising eclipses, decreed by hypersensitive industries, are of course rarely seen in this country. Fortunately, because the fact that, according to recent language, instead of "boycott" we are only talking about "the freedom of advertisers to do without a suitable advertising medium" does not make the matter any less questionable. Freedom of insertion and freedom of opinion are, to put it mildly, in a hopeless contradiction here. It would probably be more convincing - attention, an even more daring thought experiment! - if the much-maligned advertising went on strike of its own accord, i.e. boycotted its clients and the rest of the world for a while. As with so many familiar circumstances, the saying "familiarity breeds contempt" also applies to them. Why is the city suddenly so gray? Wasn't it more colorful? In other words: Advertising is also an integral part of today's everyday aesthetics.
What would even science be worth without self-promotion? Little, because it is not beautiful in itself. That's why even professors occasionally spread their feathers as columnists. But not too often! After all, this column was quite uplifting, treating advertising as sporty, educational, emotionally competent, politically indispensable, morally powerful and generally the best of all forms of communication (at least in their eyes). Have you learned anything from this, dear creatives? Exactly! So goodbye to the next columnist from the science industry.
> Ulrich Saxer was a professor of journalism at the University of Zurich and
Professor of Sociology of Communication in Lugano.
