Choosing good over evil: The changing face of advertising

When we were kids, we often watched cartoons where the central character had to choose a good or evil path.

In that moment, choosing to make the right choice and pursuing kindness, safety, rescue or well-being seemed so obviously correct. The dark, evil choice was only for obvious villains to select.

It was a no-brainer, right?

As marketers, we often must choose good over evil, too.

We have powerful communications channels. We have strong messages to share. We are aiming for authentic narratives and images that resonate with customers. Again and again, we must choose to be truthful, kind, careful, and thoughtful about how we promote our products and services.

Lately I’ve been bothered by what I see as a trend in advertising and marketing that seeks to provoke the audience with obviously anarchic imagery. It’s memorable, yes. It may even cause recipients to click a link to learn more, to read a little more closely or to bind terrible images with an appealing product.

This distresses me. We shouldn’t become immune to the abuse of the marketing pulpit.

You may already have heard about a recent commercial for Apple’s iPad Pro that presents an enormous industrial press steadily squeezing down on a piano, brass instruments, paint cans, an old, full-size video game console, clay sculptures, a wooden model of a human used by artists, a TV screen with a character looking terrified by the violent moment, a guitar, and even emoji stress balls being destroyed and the entire assemblage is oozing paint like blood.

Apple’s driven a low point for advertising and marketing with this spot. It also speaks volumes about what Apple feels it is doing to humanity and to the human pursuit of creative expression. The entire spot is set with folksy music that plays a cheeky soundtrack of the destruction of civilization. And emerging from this mess is the thinnest iPad Pro to date. Yay.

The public fury against this ad is understandable. Why would a company create a captivating video showing many tools and instruments of human creative endeavor being destroyed as part of a larger suggestion that the iPad Pro is going to embody them all and replace them? Are people really playing the piano or guitar on an iPad? And are paintings created on an iPad superior to untold thousands of paintings and sculptures hanging in museums and galleries? I don’t think so. A lot of other people don’t think so. Apple had to quickly apologize.

“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world,” said Tor Myhren, Apple’s vice president of marketing communications. “Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”

And just like that Apple is off the hook for telling their audience that the entirety of the creative endeavor is achievable through an iPad Plus. Myhren’s comment is anemic in its brevity.

I’d like to see Apple donate a lot of money to local music schools, art schools, perhaps even professional symphony orchestras and art spaces to apologize for the senseless aggression toward creative endeavors.

And Apple is not alone. Johnston & Murphy, the well-respected men’s shoe company, has been running ads on social media channels that are equally offensive. I’ve been served up recent content portraying beautifully photographed, handsome men doing things that are completely ridiculous and, again, anarchic. The worst offender is a photo of a man’s legs and feet wearing very nice shoes and socks planted firmly and pressing down on the black and white keys of a piano in a luxurious room.

Another ad shows a handsome man, beautifully turned out wearing a lovely outfit with beautiful shoes standing on an elegant dinner table in a gorgeous dining room. Yes, he’s standing on the wood table set for a sit-down dinner. And another ad shows a man stupidly standing by a BBQ with an ice sculpture of a swan on the grill. Enigmatic images always pull eyes, they slow down the scroll, the reader’s gaze is captivated by unusual photos. But these types of photos being used to convey marketing messages are irresponsible.

It isn’t funny. It isn’t cute. It is a terrible shame that marketers, our colleagues, feel it is necessary to wrestle audience attention by portraying actions we would never tell our children are OK.

As marketing professionals, we have a responsibility to use our bully pulpit of advertising and promotions for good and not evil. It simply should not be acceptable that we create offensive imagery to entice and engage our audience to sell more. These approaches, while captivating, are only eye-catching in the same way that we might look at a burning building or a terrible accident on the highway. Human curiosity causes us to gaze, but advertising need not encourage anarchy or boorishness to promote a product or service.

We must continually think about the messages we send to our customers, our clients, our stakeholders. Life is complex enough without encouraging people to behave badly. When we normalize bad behavior we are completely failing in our professional output.

I’m sure Apple and Johnston & Murphy have more company in this realm. Hunger for revenue and eyes on marketing messages should never cause lapses in corporate communications leadership.

I sincerely hope that we as marketers strive to do better and better for our audiences. Let’s aim to intrigue our customers with great images and messages, even enigmatic ones. Let’s use our powers of persuasion to increase the greater good in the world.

• Rebecca Hoffman is the founder and principal of Good Egg Concepts, a strategic communication and brand marketing consulting practice serving clients around the Chicago area and nationally.