Alain de Botton on An Ethical Advertising Campaign

Advertising has a bad name in society, because it's associated with selling us things we don't really need: chocolate, 4 x 4 cars, diamond rings. We may appreciate the artistry, intelligence and wit that's often found in adverts – we've just got problems with what goods are being sold.

So imagine a different way of using advertising: one that would use the aesthetic talents of advertising but direct these to a really grand and noble project: that of nudging us to be the best of ourselves. Imagine an ethical advertising campaign that wanted to promote virtues of character applicable and relevant to our own lives, virtues like kindness, patience, humility, generosity, courage and humour.

In Ancient Greece and again in medieval Christianity, people claimed to know exactly what the virtues of character were. For our part, we'll never get to any concrete list, we're too far down the road of postmodern relativism, but that's not really the point. Far more important than to define the virtues is to set in motion an attempt to live by a few. It is absurd to imagine that anyone could ever hope to identify seven or eight or fifteen cast-iron rules of good conduct which would answer every question that might arise about how human beings can live peacefully and well together. But what about making a start? What about picking 6 virtues that do seem sensible and wise and then tackling the enormous challenge of making them alive and active in our minds? A lack of absolute agreement on the good life should not in itself ever be enough to disqualify us from investigating and promoting the notion of such a life.

Advertisers engaged on an ethical mission would know that their technical talents would find their ultimate purpose in calling forth appropriate ethical responses from us: our eyes would train our hearts. Militating against this mission are all manner of visual clichés. The real difficulty with the ideas which underlie virtues like love or compassion is not that they seem surprising or peculiar, but rather that they seem far too obvious: their very reasonableness and universality strip them of their power. To cite a verbal parallel, we have heard a thousand times that we should love our neighbour, but the prescription loses any of its meaning when it is merely repeated by rote. So too with bad adverts: the best virtues, presented without talent or imagination, generate only indifference and boredom. The task for advertisers is therefore to find new ways of prizing open our eyes to tiresomely familiar yet critical ideas.

Atheists tend to pity the inhabitants of religiously-dominated societies for the extent of the propoganda they have to endure, but this is to overlook secular societies' equally powerful and continuous calls-to-prayer. We're never far from a commercial message urging us to buy this or that. We should try to build a more plural system of advertising, where the traditional commercial messages paid for by corporations were balanced out by ones promoting ingredients of the good life as defined by a wide-scale poll of citizens. Advertisements for 4x4 jeeps would run alongside ones evoking the importance of listening or forgiving.

We are in need of such advertising because we simply will not care for very long about ethical behaviours when all we are given to convince us of their worth is an occasional reminder in a book – while, in the city beyond, the superlative talents of the globe's advertising agencies perform their phantasmagorical alchemy and set our every sensory fibre alight in the name of a new kind lemon-scented floor polish or savoury snack. If we tend to think so often about cleaning or cracked black pepper crisps, but relatively little about endurance or justice, the fault is not merely our own. It is also that these two cardinal virtues are not generally in a position to become clients of a top agency - until now...

What we're proposing is a new kind of Ethical Advertising Agency, which would every year run a campaign promoting 6 key virtues, as chosen by an online poll. Six very high profile poster sites would be chosen around the country, generating a wave of discussion and interest. Behind each chosen virtue, people would be directed to a host of organisations, private, charitable, and governmental, which in some ways help to foster this virtue.

The Ethical Advertising Agency would perform a trick which has eluded advertising in capitalism so far: to unite the best of advertisers' energy and artistry with the highest moral ambitions.

Alain de Botton is a Founder of The School of Life, and author of the recently published 'Religion for Atheists' 

Comments

[ConFrantzeskos]

However admirable, this is not a new or unique idea.

As Bill Bernbach, founder of DDB, said: "All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level."

Good communication is derived from a human need - and helps match the brand promise with that human need. The very best communications don't seem like advertising at all - they achieve noble outcomes.

["Fluff" Flanagan]

There seem to be way too many irrelevant comments on this article: in this case, the less is definitely more!

[Sammy]

There is a similar campaign going on the USA. When I first saw one of the Virtues Project signs, I reacted cynically. I was convinced that the Mona Lisa's image and exhortation to "SMILE" were motivated by the religious right or political conservatives. Then I found out that the Virtues Project is an organisation which hopes to take back the co-opted notion of "virtue". Regardless of who sponsors such signs, there is something orwellian about huge messages one can't ignore, telling one what to think or do.

[james]

There is clearly a group that has a vested interest in the well being of citizens, they're called government and we could easily set aside advertising budgets for what alain is proposing. Government spend a lot of money on advertising, the dept of culture could do this. Tanaaaa....vested interest.

[Drew Byrne]

The best advert for living the good life is the one you don't notice working on you in front of your nose.

[James]

Ok...

So, the advertisers for the snack food have a vested interest in their success, because it affects their client's revenue and profit, which affects its ability to pay for future advertising.

How do the advertisers for the virtue have a vested interest in their success?

When there's a good answer to that question, who else has that vested interest, and might work for the virtue if they understood their situation?

>:->

[Jon Alexander]

Very interesting thinking. I am on something of a similar mission myself, as someone who has worked in the industry for nearly 10 years and recently co-authored a report called 'Think of me as evil? Opening the ethical debates in advertising', link below. I've been doing the rounds of agencies off the back of this and debating at the RSA and IPA - there is a genuine moment afoot. Alain, if you want to get in touch, please do so - your help would be powerful, and much appreciated.
http://valuesandframes.org/download/reports/Think%20Of%20Me%20As%20Evil%20-%20PIRC-WWF%20Oct%202011.pdf

[Piet Wulleman]

read The Happy Soul Industry (http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Soul-Industry-Steffan-Postaer/dp/1592993524).
It's about exactly this idea

[Benkloester]

This already exists. It's called street art.

[jkforde]

I love this idea, just like Diogenes of Oenoanda efforts nearly 2000 years ago that Alain covered in his Guide to Happiness series. A very very worthy initiative but it'll have to be multi-generational! (sure, we've blissfully forgotten his teaching and wisdom 2000 years since Diogenes!), it's a fact that most of us are inherently weak & myopic by nature so every generation will have to be reminded and kneaded!
keep at it Alain!

[gail]

Fantastic idea - am writing as head of market insight for a major charity and exactly reflects many conversations we have been having internally. The challenge is to get advertising as a whole to change it's framing back to tapping into more internal and 'virtuous' values (rather than status and power). One step on that journey would be a great achievement.

[Michelle Tobin]

Love this idea. Can't wait to stumble upon a billboard.

[WinMeister]

Prizing or prising?

[lavieboheme]

Need to observe the fine line between advertising and propaganda (is there one?). While reading this I thought of a visit to Havana in 1999 where there were NO billboards advertising brand names, but lots saying "Vive la revolution!"

[Rb]

Mm, cracked black pepper crisps

[Björn]

@GJG And Invisible Children Inc will earn a ton of money on it, selling "stop the war" merchandise. All honor to them for raising attention for an important cause, but they are lining their pockets whether Kony is captured or not. Now that the topic is trending on social media, and news stations are picking it up too, it is only a matter of time before politicians will make it "their" cause in their real quest for more votes. In the end we are spending tons of money on capturing one evil man, instead of helping thousands of innocent people in need. It makes me sick.

(Sorry for sort of going off post topic)

[GJG]

This is interesting and dovetails nicely with something else I just heard about today: the KONY 2012 campaign to end a war and change the world.

Anyone who doesn't yet know about KONY 2012 should watch their video on YouTube as it is a great example of something very close to ethical advertising and a worthy project for the world in 2012 - http://bit.ly/zWJAsV