By Kevin Potvin

It’s so passé to draw attention to, and complain about, advertising. But then again, if it’s so common, how come no one does it anymore? There’s certainly much to complain about. But the real problem is, to whom do you complain, and what about, exactly? For example, can one write an effective letter to Telus and complain that their new radio ad is damaging to society because it denigrates the social value of friendship? The ad in particular tells of a new corporate offer of a “free” computer to new subscribers. The ad begins with a voice-over saying, “Isn’t it great when friends are nice to each other? To prove it, we’re giving away a free computer.”

Did we need proof that friendship is nice? No, but the premise that we do sets up not only the computer offer, but also the offensive bit: “When did you ever hear this: ‘Hey Cindy, we’ve been friends forever, so here’s a computer.’? Not likely!” Telus isn’t just suggesting it can be your friend by showering you with gifts like a “free” computer, it’s suggesting the company is even better than a life-long friend because it gives you more free things than a friend ever would.

What kind of friend?

But what kind of friend offers you something “free” only as a trick that will make you give more money to that “friend” than the value of whatever they gave to you as a “gift”? What kind of friend tries to win your loyalty by reminding you that he gives you more things than your other friend gives you? And what kind of friend mentions your other friends only to put them down? Telus sounds more like the sleazy, vindictive, and vengeful parent in a horrible divorce case trying to curry favour with the child with cheap gifts, while hiding away assets to avoid paying child support.

Telus is not the only company that does things like this. Consider the damage done by Brita, the global water filtration company, which runs an ad pointing out that your tap water comes from the same source that fills the tank on your toilet. The point is driven home by an image showing a glass of water draining in a swirl, accompanied by the sound of a toilet flushing. They know it means nothing about the quality of your drinking water, and they know they are causing unfounded fears in people’s minds, fears that might cause us to give them money. But what kind of friend is that? If you stood on the corner and raised false fears that caused people to give you money, you’d be arrested.

What happens to people who are repeatedly told they’re idiots?

Nearly every commercial on TV portrays us or our friends as idiots or backstabbers. The anti-social sentiment is so prevalent among the public images all big companies use to project themselves that if we wrote laws that compelled them to do nothing that frays the social fabric, hardly any ads on radio or TV would be left to play. Corporate anti-social ads that belittle human friendship, shame those who show human concern for nature and their fellow man, and make fun of those who try to improve their knowledge and that of those around them, do more damage than all the violence and explicit sex in video games and in music videos and popular films, combined.

The only difference is, the more damaging images come with happy, chirpy female voice-overs and are usually presented as some kind of light comedy, whereas the images and tracks in games, videos, and films that attract all the negative press and attention—the kind of things that people do complain about all the time—are not usually happy or chirpy, and are seldom presented as comedy. You’d think there would be more to it than that, but you’d be wrong.

You decide how much it's worth to you: