My favourite ad was back for a second summer: here’s why
Originally published 27 September 2016
You may need to sit down for this one: advertising has a tendency to lie. Despite the valiant efforts of the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency, it’s still searingly obvious that some forms of fabrication slip through the cracks. All advertising hinges on selling a lifestyle, whatever that may comprise; and it’s this lifestyle that is contorted and contrived into whatever will sell its associated product.
As Jean Kilbourne stated in Killing Us Softly, “ads sell more than products; they sell values, they sell images, they sell concepts … perhaps most important, of normalcy. To a great extent they tell us who we are and who we should be.” Whether you’ve felt persuaded into aspiring to the illusory ‘family life’, or convinced into thinking you need 50 different types of skincare products, you’ve been a target market. We all have. The stories advertisers tell aim to invade our brains with the word ‘should’, exploiting our insecurity.
As this method of lifestyle-selling has been working for decades, it’s no wonder that advertisers are having to push to the extremes. Competition to present the ‘absolute’ lifestyle, in many instances, has pushed some campaigns a little too far. Tampon and razor adverts are repeat offenders of this: sliding down a water chute has never seemed very appealing when I’ve been suffering backbreaking cramps. And it’s inconceivable that anything could make us win an England match, especially not shaving in a public building next to the cubicle toilets.
If one coffee company has advertised that brewing two mugs of watery, granulated sludge is the perfect way of ‘winding down’ after a date, the next, newer brand has to depict your date as having laser eyes, superhuman strength and evidently, no taste buds. But this competition between different companies to find the most persuasive ‘should’ has actually done us a favour; they’ve exposed themselves as being completely desperate to push anything that could make a sale. After creating more and more hyperreal images, many portrayals of ‘reality’ have become too far away from our own experiences. For too long, yogurt adverts have been promising women orgasms. We know that it’s a lifestyle we want, but it’s a lifestyle we’re never gonna get. And we’re all getting a bit tired of it, to be honest.
This fatigue isn’t a new concept- Adbusters have been working for years to tear down the establishment of the lifestyle-sell, but recently it has been brought further and further into the public eye (cue the genius of Celeste Barber). I should say now that I’m definitely not against advertising; I’m just definitely against this lifestyle-selling method.
And this is where my favourite advert of the summer comes in: ‘It’s summer. You’re thirsty. We’ve got sales targets’. The message of Oasis’s campaign both in the summers of 2015 and 2016 was clear and simple: instead of trying to shroud their tactics, the message reiterates what we already know about the advertising industry. This literally refreshing honesty was so well received that the Coca Cola Company decided to keep it going for a second year.
The ad reads between the lines of its competitors’ campaigns and invites a self-consciousness that we appreciate as humorous and even transparent (or at the least, translucent).
As Brad Insight accurately stated in 2015, the new consumer is ‘savvy, humble and place[s] a great deal of importance in a brand being honest, transparent and communicating their values to them’: It appears we’re now turning the spotlight onto companies themselves, demanding they express their values, rather than letting them ascribe values for ourselves. Our downright reversal of the lifestyle-sell in this way takes agency away from the agencies, admitting their own faults and needs, instead of projecting faults and needs onto the consumer.
I am so very much aware that this could get just as out-dated, overused and exploited as the next marketing trend, but for the time being, Oasis has moved a step forward to understanding — and respecting — its consumer. Instead of pressurising and shaming their audience, the transparency shown here doesn’t patronise their ‘savvy’ audience; as identified by Chip Kidd in his TED talk, “giving [a consumer] the credit for the knowledge that they already have” could be a design concept that introduces a more empowering — perhaps even ethical — way of making a sale. Consumers are finally taking back control of the ‘should’: let’s hope more advertisers take us seriously.
