Last but not least: Two kinds of advertising criticism

Retiring editors are usually allowed to review their time at the magazine in a kind of résumé. As I am not particularly fond of nostalgic thoughts, I prefer to conclude with two topics that point to the future.

Creativity
Let's start with the content, the much-vaunted creativity in the advertising industry. The hijacking of the term by the so-called creative industry is already so far advanced that many of our contemporaries need to be reminded again and again: Creativity has as little to do with the creative industry as water has to do with the food industry. Creativity is a fundamental characteristic of the homo sapiensnamely to be able to think or create something that was not there before. As the linguist Noam Chomsky always mentions, even formulating a sentence is an extremely creative act.
What am I getting at with this comment? Everyone is creative. It's just that not everyone earns their money by working for companies with their inventions - which, incidentally, are all too often plagiarized. So, dear people, call a spade a spade and say: I work in the advertising industry, or: I work in the product and service propaganda industry, because what's creative about the whole thing is primarily the ways to increase sales, and that's not so creative after all.
Another concern would be that if advertising wants to be creative, it should also remain honest. There is a tendency here to take consumers for fools in a very obvious and irony-free way and in a reversal of the Media Markt claim. For example, the advertising spot of a major distributor that paints an idealized Ballenberg Switzerland in beautiful colors, where the chicken comes by and lays its own egg in the carton on the spot (the fact that it marinates itself and throws it on the grill would probably have been a bit too much). So the portrait is of a Swiss chicken, regardless of the fact that a lot of chicken meat from the same wholesaler comes from Brazil and ... elsewhere. Just one example.
What's more, creative does not necessarily mean inspiring. Grosso modo, 80 percent of advertising is moderately to extremely boring, around one fifth of advertising messages are such that you can even get really upset about them (which admittedly has an invigorating effect), and perhaps one percent - at least - is inspiring every now and then. By inspiring, I mean advertising that is not over-determined, that doesn't just push the much-cited consumer towards the binary decision to buy/not to buy, but that puts something into the world that is still unfinished and that allows new thoughts and ideas to be generated in the minds of those to whom it is addressed. Christian Hänggi summarizes this aptly in his new book: A development that frees the mind or brain of the consumer/citizen in such a way that they can achieve higher mental productivity.
Being creative therefore also means leaving the process open for further creation. A challenge.

Outdoor advertising
Apparently, marketing strategists feel that advertising messages have the right to an appointment with me at any time of day or night, in the city or in the country, on the streetcar or even in the loo. I don't quite see it that way. It makes sense that advertising should take place where it significantly finances something, i.e. in print products, on websites, on television, at football matches, at other commercial events, on the radio, and so on. For me, however, poster advertising in public spaces and on public transport has no right to exist. It hardly generates any financial returns, but occupies entire areas. By way of comparison, outdoor advertising generates an estimated 0.2 per thousand of total revenue for the city of Zurich; in the case of print products, we are talking about 30 to 70 percent. To paraphrase Howard Gossage: outdoor advertising trades in a commodity that does not belong to it: the field of vision of passers-by. And without their consent. And almost for free.
I am not an anti-advertising Taliban, I don't understand bans on advertising for alcohol and tobacco products, for example, and I have nothing against advertising as long as it is not force-fed. As long as I agree to it by buying a newspaper or switching on a television, advertising is fine with me (except for exciting movies), sometimes it is even entertaining. But this is exactly where the problem lies: outdoor advertising is in the middle of my living space, unasked. It is impossible to switch it on or off, and there is no Robinson's list, which, incidentally, an astonishing number of advertisers make use of for their own four walls.
In advertising circles, the right to freedom of expression is increasingly being insisted on again as a defense against advertising bans. However, if this is already being done, then this right to freedom should not only be demanded, but also granted. This would mean that a citizen must also have the right to be free from advertising if he or she does not want it. In addition to freedom of expression, freedom from coercion is also part of a liberal social order. To let Gossage have his say once again: I like outdoor advertising. I just don't think it has a right to be out there.

Cheers and thanks to the people at Werbewoche for two instructive years
Michael Koller