Sexism and stereotyping are now rife in advertising, and the whole thing becomes more than visual pollution, but becomes psychological or emotional pollution as well.

Complaining to the Advertising Standards Bureau can be done, although that organisation is probably the greatest toothless tiger “watch dog” organisation in Australia. In 2003, there were 2620 complaints made, and only 23 upheld. 1770 complaints were dismissed and others were withdrawn, or deemed outside of charter etc. Other years are similar http://www.advertisingstandardsbureau.com.au/facts_figures.html So if complaints are made to that organisation, then there is almost a 100 to 1 chance of having the complaint dismissed.

Even if someone has the money to buy all the products being advertised, then there becomes the problem of where they are going to put all those products. Eventually they will run out of room, which means that the consumer has to become selective eventually on what products they buy and take home.

So we have ads that have become pollution, (in one form or another), and no one can simply purchase the products being advertised unless they throw out something else.

But it is noticed that advertisements normally do not display the name of the advertising company. If there is a movie, a documentary etc then the producer or director will have their name displayed as part of the credits, but this does not occur within advertising. The public knows what the product is, but not who actually produced the often abysmal ad. That to me seems to be a place to start.

Having the advertising company display their name as a credit on the advertisement, would help the public know more about who was behind that ad.

Timkins, love your idea about identification of the advertising company behind adds.

Elspeth great article. The issues are not simple and it is nice to see them treated with an acknowledgement of the complexities involved.

I recall in the early eighties sitting next to an advertising "creative" person on a long flight, back in the days when I used to talk to my neighbouring fellow-traveller. As we chatted, it became clear that he had been closely involved in what I considered to be some of the most egregious examples of tacky advertising of the period, an opinion that I ventured after several beers.

He looked puzzled for a moment, then turned to me and said crossly "For heaven's sake, they weren't aimed at you."

I think there's something in that for all of us, don't you?

I am an advertising "creative" person, have been for 20 odd years, written some good ads and some bad ads, some that some people have loved, some that some people have hated. It is a tough business and getting tougher. The number of ads created in Australia is shrinking, many of the ads are made overseas and revoiced and run here. Almost every ad on TV has been extensively researched with its "target" audience, and doesn't get to air unless the people they expect might buy the product respond positively to the ad. The ad industry has long employed and trained Aussie writers (Peter Carey, Bryce Courtenay, Derek Hansen), art directors and artists (Ken Done, Dennis Marchant, Adrian Lockhart), film directors (Ray Lawrence, Cherie Nowlan, Shirley Barrett, the director of Somersault) DOP's (every last one of them), producers, film crews, designers, make-up artists, stylists etc. The current decline of the Aussie film industry is directly related to the decline of the ad industry. I am a trenchant critic of bad, lazy, sexist ads, but good ads; funny ones, moving ones, clever ones, relevant ones are rare and hard to get through the increasingly control-freak universe we live in, and worth celebrating. It's a shame we are seeing less and less Aussie ones.
Love the article, by the way. Spot on in its analysis. Ads are really mirrors that reflect us back to ourselves, and just like real mirrors, we don't always like what we see. But the ads change, when we do, more than the other way around.

I do not think that ads are simply mirrors that reflect what we are. I think that there are too many adds that deliberately seek to change our values and attitudes and appeal to the worst aspects of human nature in the interests of creating a market and selling products.

At the risk of being labelled a ‘control-freak’ I deplore ads that use very sophisticated psychological research to market products to children and would like to see this practice regulated.

Interesting posts, especially from Enjay, how do you make a silk purse out of a sow's ear? and great article too. I suppose it all comes down about how much we, as a consumer allows it to suck us all in. I worked with a girl in her twenties who just had to have the Estee Lauder makeup, the Bolle sunnies et al and god she was boring. I accused her once of living her life through brand names without the "lifestyle" they promised and did i get a BOSE earful! She didn't care about the content of the ads (ie: sexism) where as I certainly wouldn't buy my partner a pair of Windsor Smith shoes on principle of their billboards a couple of years ago. Advertising does stereotype and suck people in however, my sister bought a "Toorak Tractor" and she lives in Sydney! Justify's it by her lifestyle of trekking the kids around and the "need" to be safe on the road. (though you wouldn't want to meet her in a supermarket carspace or a roundabout) One (or several) ads must have sucked her in but I suspect it's a domino effect with what all her girlfriends are buying. All their last names are Jones'.

Stereotyping is a problem with many badly crafted ads, particularly of women, often written by young men who, as the author of the article points out, project their own emotions onto the women they are portraying rather than trying to understand them. But when you've got 30 seconds, or a single page and image to communicate something to an information drenched audience who are not interested in receiving your message anyway, it is awfully hard to portray a fully rounded, human personality that doesn't rely slightly on the shorthand of stereotyping. That some ads manage to do this is a tribute to the skill of their creators.
I agree about advertising to kids, we need to be very sensitive here BUT, advertising is the most honest of the dishonest professions, when you see an ad you know we are trying to sell you something. Because of that, ads are a good way to help kids understand persuasion and selling, protecting them completely from ads is probably impossible anyway, they are part of our world, like it or not.
And after so long in the business, I am far less impressed with the sophisticated psychological techniques marketers claim to use. Like most human endeavour, successful marketing is as much good luck as good management. 80% of new products fail, despite big budget ad campaigns behind them, and us professionals don't know why some work and some don't. And thank goodness for that, I say.

Um... I don't think that Laura Mulvey argues what you say she does. Mulvey's quotation from Boetticher is not cited in the context of woman as a blank screen, but in the context of the integration of moments of erotic contemplation into narrative. More broadly, Mulvey's arguments (and her own films) are much more complex than can be captured by saying that their point is that "pleasure in looking ... had to be destroyed".

I am not sure what is meant by "critiques that are either idealist or vulgarly oppositional", but critique would seem to have a clear advantage over acquiescence in an idiot culture. Simply because men are presented as dills in some advertisements doesn't mean that ads vilifying women (or "chicks" as the saying goes) are thereby rendered amusing.

Enaj

"...advertising is the most honest of the dishonest professions, when you see an ad you know we are trying to sell you something. Because of that, ads are a good way to help kids understand persuasion and selling, protecting them completely from ads is probably impossible anyway, they are part of our world, like it or not."

I'd like to think that too, Enaj. But for most kids, ads are just a good way of selling things - nothing more. Most kids are not taught how to analyse them, more's the pity. Even saying that ads are a good way to help adults understand persuasion and selling wouldn't be right, either. Research frequently establishes that until around 8-10 years and sometimes 12 years, kids have trouble distinguishing ads from programs. If they can't recognise an ad, how can it help them understand persuasion and selling? The ad industry knows all this, and they exploit kids to their advantage.

As an ex-copywriter, I make it my job to very clearly explain to my kids how advertisers manipulate them into wanting something. They're now so good at it that my 3-year old will ask me, "What are they trying to sell there, mum?" Or say, "That's just an ad. They want me to buy something." Once our kids were taught to deconstruct commercial material, they were really quick to catch on. It becomes a game at the supermarket, and they don't ask for anything because they know they're being sold to.

You're right that we can't protect our kids from ads. But we can educate them, and give them greater self-esteem to protect them from the exploitative tactics of the ad industry.

Oh another article about the horrors of sexism, the demonizing of consumerism and damning of advertising. Nothing about the benefits of competition, mass production engineering and development of product standards.

Next we will have the crucifixion of packaging and calls for the good old days with all weekend closing of retail stores to so the employees can all go to church on Sunday, under the ever watchful eye of a paternalistic store owner.

When I see articles like these I feel it is quixotic, people simply tilting at windmills because, their lives are so bereft of substance and real issues, they have nothing else to tilt at – or maybe (worse) the author is paid on the output of the word counter and not the word content!

Who cares – it does not matter – just another opportunity for a hack to “market”, "advertise" and "promote" their word-smithing skills – Lets face it, the article claims “consumerism is all pervasive” – I can only surmise, it stands as an example that "consumerism" has pervaded the sanctified columns of journalism.