Strange Days Have Found Us - Advertising For Social Change
Mike Catherall
January 11, 2006
There are strange things going on in the world today.
There are African sex workers who are resistant to AIDS.
Bill Gates is aiming to eliminate malaria in ten years.
It’s an interesting contrast, a curable disease, and an unstoppable pestilence, both curtailed by genetic mutations possibly geared toward the betterment of society as a whole, but from such opposite ends.
People are inserting RFIP chips into their own flesh to open garage doors. People are blowing themselves up. Our hazardous waste is turning polar bears into hermaphrodites. There are guys begging for change on the freeway in the freezing rain.
When you pull yourself away from the computer for long enough, you realize that there are some pretty wild lives going on out there.
What does this have to do with advertising? With sustainability?
Sometimes it is best to go from the darkest, most stinging truths and work backward.
Really, what good is advertising? To spread information? To educate, inform and entertain the public? To catch attention? There has to be some use for that.
Sustainability? It can be dry. It’s true. But like Brussels’ sprouts and organic fair trade omega 3 supplements, it is good for us, in the long run.
Why the marriage? Well, why not? I’d say the world has enough bombardment for junk they don’t need, so we might as well put the knowledge we have to make people tick to, well, use.
No one at Creative Wonders (where I work) ever claims to be saintly. In fact we are just as bad as the rest of you. For shame! But as much as we have to prove this over and over again, and fight the world, screaming and kicking, to the ground, the truth eventually surfaces -we do know about mass communications. We’ve been doing this for 25 years (well Diane has, and she’s one smart lady) and let’s face it, we are obsessed with something that is at best an endearing conversation piece to most: advertising.
So, as we go about spreading your message of social change, ask yourself, “Why?” and really, really think about it. “Why will my message make the world a better place?”
When you have that figured out, give us a call. We’ll be right here, on this daily column, and we’d like to bring you along for the ride.
There are African sex workers who are resistant to AIDS.
Bill Gates is aiming to eliminate malaria in ten years.
It’s an interesting contrast, a curable disease, and an unstoppable pestilence, both curtailed by genetic mutations possibly geared toward the betterment of society as a whole, but from such opposite ends.
People are inserting RFIP chips into their own flesh to open garage doors. People are blowing themselves up. Our hazardous waste is turning polar bears into hermaphrodites. There are guys begging for change on the freeway in the freezing rain.
When you pull yourself away from the computer for long enough, you realize that there are some pretty wild lives going on out there.
What does this have to do with advertising? With sustainability?
Sometimes it is best to go from the darkest, most stinging truths and work backward.
Really, what good is advertising? To spread information? To educate, inform and entertain the public? To catch attention? There has to be some use for that.
Sustainability? It can be dry. It’s true. But like Brussels’ sprouts and organic fair trade omega 3 supplements, it is good for us, in the long run.
Why the marriage? Well, why not? I’d say the world has enough bombardment for junk they don’t need, so we might as well put the knowledge we have to make people tick to, well, use.
No one at Creative Wonders (where I work) ever claims to be saintly. In fact we are just as bad as the rest of you. For shame! But as much as we have to prove this over and over again, and fight the world, screaming and kicking, to the ground, the truth eventually surfaces -we do know about mass communications. We’ve been doing this for 25 years (well Diane has, and she’s one smart lady) and let’s face it, we are obsessed with something that is at best an endearing conversation piece to most: advertising.
So, as we go about spreading your message of social change, ask yourself, “Why?” and really, really think about it. “Why will my message make the world a better place?”
When you have that figured out, give us a call. We’ll be right here, on this daily column, and we’d like to bring you along for the ride.
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