Ladies and gentlemen,
I thank you for hearing me speak today in this room which is filled
with energy and excitement which one has come to expect from advertising
professionals. For you are the ones who can take simple tea bags
and create an image that these can heal the deep conflict between
my mother and my wife. I also commend the advertising energy and
genius that can take food alien to our culture (and which is also
patently harmful for health) and convert a nation into Mac-gluttons.
And it certainly takes almost spiritual power to convince people
that a headache or for that matter any pain is unnatural, undesirable
and serves no purpose. Do you hear any ethical concerns I may be
having when I just made these statements?
Please allow me to go on. Do
advertisers have any ethical obligations? If so, what are they?
The answer depends on whom you ask?
Alfred Sloan,
founder of General Motors, once said “the business of business
is business.” And not long ago the famous economist Milton
Friedman echoed this by stating that the ethics of any business
is to maximize the long-term value for shareholders. Period. Nothing
more. These simple principles have bred other truisms to which the
world is now completely hooked. Namely:
The economy is the dominant institution
of society.
Sustained economic growth is the path
to progress.
Continued technological advance is essential.
Competition is the essential characteristic
of the system.
There is no compelling reason to question
present ownership patterns.
Free markets result in the most efficient
allocation of resources.
Economic globalization, achieved by removing
barriers increases growth, jobs, lowers prices and benefits
everyone.
All successful advertisers buy into these truisms
and channel their energies to further these causes.
But according to Max-Neef the noted Chilean economist,
in the last three decades while we have witnessed growth in productivity
never experienced before in the history of humanity, we have also
seen a growth in poverty and in the destruction of the environment
as never seen by any civilization before. Just last week I read in
Dawn newspaper that an estimated 50 million Pakistanis live on less
than Rupees 3,000 per month. That’s 50 million living on less
than 50 dollars a month. That is more than double the population of
Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Austria combined
living on one and a half dollars a day.
“NGO’s have a hidden agenda and are not
to be trusted.”
In this unprecedented
world of poverty, the advertising world is continually bombarding
the world with images of women as objects, using children as emotional
triggers, and making food and clothing appear seductive and sexy.
And through the
images of mass advertising and media we are becoming tyrannized
by more desires. Noted Pakistani thinker, Akbar S. Ahmed notes that
that these images are dazzling Asians and Africans who have no access
to such reality. “These are no more than dangerous illusions
for the majority of the people who are poor.” “ These
images can not solve anything but they can through envy and desire
spread -- spoil contentment, patience, and balance – the virtues
of traditional societies”.
Noted thinker,
Wallis Harman, author of Global Mind Change, says we are now looking
at seven systematic destructions:
Systematic destruction of the natural environment
Systematic destruction of community
Systematic transfer of wealth upward
Systematic marginalization of cultures
and persons
Systematic erosion and denial of the sense
of spiritual
Systematic concentration of power
Systematically learned incapacity and helplessness
If true, clearly we face a very sobering challenge.
It is time for advertisers to wake up and take personal responsibility
for this planet. Every time you design an image you might want to
ask, is this going to contribute to these seven systematic destructions?
Am I responsible in any small part for what is happening?
So what is responsibility? WHAT IS ETHICS? How are
the two related?
Responsibility is simply the ability to respond.
And ethics is simply enforcing on your self that which is unenforceable
from outside.
I am struck by how often I previously looked to others
for solutions. For example, I looked to my father for financial security
and to my wife for domestic harmony, and to the doctor to cure my
illness, and to KMC to clean the streets, and hoped that the political
powers that be would act beyond short-term partisan positioning.
Similarly, I expected the law to intervene and subdue
harmful advertising. That is to create more laws and more outlaws.
That is not responsibility. That is shoving off something from my
table and putting it on someone else’s lap. It’s not ethics
either.
While the mass media would have us believe that ethical
misdeeds or misdeeds with a bad intent, drives the corporate executives
and some board members, the real problem I believe starts in the guts
of organizations – often in advertising and marketing. Some
of our advertising executive friends won’t like this discussion.
Ethics in advertising means to self regulate our
selves in a manner that the rights of consumers are protected. In
1962, President Kennedy of USA identified four 'rights', the right
to safety, the right to be informed, the right to choose and the right
to be heard. Our advertisements must ensure these rights. If our clients
sell harmful medications, then rights to safety and rights to be informed
are violated. If our advertisements put competitors out of business,
our rights to choose are threatened.
So what prevents us from taking this responsibility
to ensure these rights? Quite simply put, it is living and working
under domination systems. According to Theologian Walter Wink, he
defines these domination systems as systems in which few people in
society control many others to their advantage. These systems nurture
a quality of thinking in people to find support to keep them going.
So you train the people so they fit in the system: a domination system
requires suppression of self, where self-expression is to be avoided
and obedience to authority is revered. So if you want to take responsibility
for your actions, you are given the message that your only responsibility
is to follow the dictates of the market place and to follow orders
and that alone will absolve you of any social responsibility!
It is much easier to talk about what others must
do. On the other hand if we don’t take responsibility, who will?
But Hazel Henderson, a futurist, has said that we
will be the first generation of any species in the history of mankind
to have the idea of taking responsibility of the whole planet. I find
that very exciting because this challenges the powers of the domination
systems.
In his book Breaking
the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy, James Fallows
shows how TV images smother speech with an anecdote about a CBS reporter
doing a story on President Ronald Reagan in 1984. The reporter, Lesley
Stahl, had documented the contradiction between what Reagan said and
what he did by showing him speaking at the Special Olympics and at
a nursing home while reporting that Reagan had cut funding to children
with disabilities and opposed funding for public health. After Stahl's
piece was broadcast, she got a call from a White House official, who
praised her. Surprised by the compliments, She asked the White House
official why he wasn't upset, pointing out that her piece had nailed
the president. The official replied:
"You television people still don't get it. No
one heard what you said. Don't you people realize that the picture
is all that counts. A powerful picture drowns out the words."
Your ads usually contain a jingle, a
slogan, and an image. After the jingle and slogan leave our consciousness,
the image remains. The image of what could be, but impossible to achieve.
It’s an image rocket powered to drown me in misery, resentment,
and envy. An image fueling desires that are never fulfilled. Imagine
50 million people who are called Pakistanis reminded of this day after
day after day. The tea bag I am holding will never resolve this conflict.
So, thank you for listening to me with all your creative
energy in this pretty room that to me appears far removed from reality
much like the advertising images I see and the three questions I leave
you with are:
To what extent will we, each one of us,
• Accept responsibility for the
whole system in which we live?
• Find the courage to commit to what is right for the future?
• Exercise discipline to stay the course and live up to our
commitments?
Ladies and gentlemen, we have all heard of the phrase
-- Its show time, folks.
