Typophile - Adbusters - Comments

““Green shopping”

aluminum — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:40:30 -0800

““Green shopping” which seems like such an oxymoron to me.”

It is. Just like ’organic corporate farming’. We consumers are such suckers. ;o)

an agency in kansas city —

ChuckGroth — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:56:39 -0800

an agency in kansas city — willoughby and associates — is making a name for themselves as being green and responsible. i remember their holiday card last year listed various things that we, as designers, could do to change our thinking, and the card was, itself, recyclable as wrapping paper.

Nick - Green is back. It’s

pattyfab — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:16:06 -0800

Nick - Green is back. It’s amazing how many full page ads I’m seeing in the paper for “Green shopping” which seems like such an oxymoron to me.

Reminds me of a book my company published in the very early 90s on Global Warming, which nobody bought. Way before its time unfortunately, nobody got it then.

Nick...nice post. Good food

aluminum — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:44:50 -0800

Nick...nice post. Good food for thought.

I started a green marketing

Nick Shinn — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:31:11 -0800

I started a green marketing company in 1988, and tried to make a go of it for a couple of years.
I worked out a philosophy and practice that addressed the issue of creativity.
As every ad should be, in essence, an environmental audit—reasoning why the product is justified or an improvement—there is no place for stretched benefits, i.e. claims and promises which have nothing to do with the product’s environmental impact.
For instance, a celebrity endorsement or a suggestion that a car will give the consumer sex appeal or social status.
That challenged a lot of the notions of creativity which exist in advertising, making it quite restricted.
As well as “non-creative” ads, it was also hard to get clients to buy into the idea that, for instance, smaller ads were better. Creatives, of course, like big ads with white space.

I came to the conclusion that the traditional business qualities advertisers look for in an agency are the be-all and end-all: price, quality (includes creativity), and service, and called it a day in 1990, by which time the green buzz of the late ’80s was fading and digitization was capturing everyone’s imagination. No doubt I could have kept at it longer if I’d been a better salesman.

There are a small number of green and pro bono agencies, and they will remain a small number. Some environmentally-favorable practices occur in the industry, notably to do with materials used, but that doesn’t address the central issue of consumption-stimulation, and the role played by “creativity” in hyping it.

There is only so much that business can do, because its bottom line is the bottom line.
It’s up to governments to regulate consumption—in the aggregate, citizens and corporations have too much self-interest to make much of a difference individually, despite the best efforts of a green minority.

Tell...I agree with you.

aluminum — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:38:18 -0800

Tell...I agree with you. That tends to be the issue with a lot of the movements ala PETA or Greenpeace or the like. Good intentions, but a faction of those intentions manifest themselves into rather obnoxious and ill-conceived actions that puts a lot of people off.

That said, at least in the US, we tend to live in an increasingly polarized world where those that partake in the issues tend to trend to one extreme or the other.

I’d like to seem something happening more in the middle, but perhaps we’re all too busy working to pay for the crap we buy that no one has had the time to put effort into that realm. ;o)

I can say the more I watch Nickelodeon with my Kids, the more I realize that there is *way* too much advertising in our society and that it absolutely effects/influences us at a very young age. (And yea, I should just shut the TV off, but Spongebob is still fun to watch...)

Not shopping for

Tell — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 17:41:54 -0800

Not shopping for entertainment, not owning multiple cars etc are all fine good ideas that I fully support. I grow all my own food, generate much of my own energy, and have never had a licence. I’m referring more to the militant attitude they promoted with activities such as scattering fake broken glass on roads, tagging shop fronts, stink bombings etc. In my experience they’re not an effective way to reach people.

In the end Adbusters are still selling a lifestyle, and by and large are preaching to the converted, or bored, rich, white kids who have latched onto what was the latest popular cause.

The big problem I have with

DanGayle — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:29:41 -0800

The big problem I have with Adbusters is that I never know when it starts. In a real magazine, you have 30 pages of ads, then the index, another 30 pages of ads and then content.

When your content IS ads, then I’m kinda lost. It’s not until about half-way through the magazine when it gets to the actual editorial content that I have realized that I’m finally reading something.

But, you gotta love a product that says, “Buying stuff and marketing stuff is bad!” When if they lived by their own premise, they would collapse under their own anti-commercialist stance.

^ not shopping for

jupiterboy — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:48:57 -0800

^ not shopping for entertainment and not driving around or taking airplane trips=not very glam. Kinda reminds me of those foolish truth spots for not-smoking.

do some research in a

Tell — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:35:33 -0800

do some research in a library

or failing that at least buy a copy of Adbusters.

I once bought Adbusters religiously, and I can tell you right now that the majority of activities in it are designed to make the activist feel good about themselves and be seen to be “making a difference.”

They rarely make a difference.

Also, what is the difference

James Puckett — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 07:03:21 -0800

Also, what is the difference between the first manifesto of 1960’s and that of 2002?

James & Don: Does Adbusters magazine carry advertising or not?

Giggles, you need to get off your duff and do some research in a library. I happen to know that the UK is full of them. Hell, you don’t even need to do that to compare the FSF manifestos—they’re both online.

Thank you Crappo :) James &

missgiggles — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 06:11:17 -0800

Thank you Crappo :)
James & Don: Does Adbusters magazine carry advertising or not? James said it does, Don said it does not. Erm...err...

missgiggles, it was Ken

crappo — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:07:35 -0800

missgiggles, it was Ken Garland who published the manifesto back in 1964.

Advertising helps us decide.

russellm — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:43:32 -0800

Advertising helps us decide. Nothing more.

Advertising imposes a lot of stupid and uninvited dreck on my consciousness that i would rather not have there.

-=®=-

Word of mouth or viral

HaleyFiege — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:21:49 -0800

Word of mouth or viral advertising has been around.. well probably since humans gained the ability of speech. Marketing of ones skills or wares started before the invention of the printing press and will live on long after it becomes obsolete.

I find the whole anti-advertising/commercialism argument pretty ridiculous. When was the last time you blacked out after watching tv commercials and woke up with 50 boxes of Tide detergent? Advertising helps us decide. Nothing more.

Unless we’re talking about kids and cigarette ads or something bad like that. In which case I agree.

Adbusters

missgiggles — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 02:52:18 -0800

What is the main focus of adbusters and how do they work? I do not understand how it links to the first things first manifesto. Please explain. I know that the manifesto was redone in 2002.