I wrote in DeBranding, Again... that role models are used in advertising. This, I'm guessing, is common knowledge. Whether the person in the ad is a culturally accepted role model (a professional athlete, an industry leader, ...) or a marketing generated role model (oh, any ad where if you just buy the advertised product, you'll be as happy, lucky, handsome, beautiful, thin, muscular, tall, short, blond, brunet, young, old, right, left, AM, FM, ... as the person using the product). A role model functions by imparting some idealized concept of self to the audience and attaching it to a brand. Hence, if I purchase an expensive car, my life will be like the people I see in those expensive car ads. I drink this brand of alcohol, I'll be as successful as the person drinking in that alcohol ad, etc.So what role model is being used, I wonder, that causes people to leave crushed, empty beer cans on a woodland path I often walk with my dog?
The problem I have with the current use of role models is a simple one; the role models I see in ads are driving in a way that, if they were to attempt anything like that on a road, would (I hope) be pulled over, their license confiscated and who knows what else. I don't see people drinking responsibly in ads. True, no alcohol ever passes their lips in US-based ads. I do see them pouring liquor into an ice bucket and drinking from there with a straw. There's also the commercial about the couple sabotaging each other in order to get to drive a car. There's a healthy family situation for you.
Yes, these are extremes. Yet I do see them and other commercials involving other products which cause me to sit back and think, "What?"
Let me give you an example of what I'd like to see -- a car commercial about a family making it home safely, joking in the car, having fun. There's a voiceover saying "Our job is to make them safe. Your job is to drive them safely." Show me people at a party and deciding on their own to not finish a drink. Let me hear the person who doesn't finish their drink say, "I'd love to finish it, but I've got to drive and I know my limits."
You get the idea, and these may be unpopular ideas but they're my ideas because, in the end, while I enjoy a good beer and love to go for drives, I really don't want to see beer cans on my woodland paths or 4x4s stuck in the mud by the river because, hey, isn't that what they did on TV?
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Tracked on: February 17, 2007 12:00 PM | Permalink to Trackback