How much social value advertising destroys?

For a salary of between £50,000 and £12 million, top advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every pound in value they generate. https://neweconomics.org/2009/12/a-bit-rich

Top anti-Black Friday campaigns: Patagonia, Allbirds & more reject consumerism

This year, a cohort of brands are eschewing Black Friday and rejecting the hyper-consumerism of the annual bargain bonanza to instead highlight the climate crisis and offer social commentary. https://www.thedrum.com/news/2020/11/27/top-anti-black-friday-campaigns-patagonia-allbirds-more-reject-consumerism?utm_campaign=weekly_member_update&utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email

Capitalism and entrepreneurship not based on growth

Create bigger forests, not bigger trees… A very good and easy-to-understand summary of what post-growth capitalism means and how to achieve it, by Melanie Rieback. https://www.ted.com/talks/melanie_rieback_post_growth_entrepreneurship

Advertising makes us unhappy

The University of Warwick’s Andrew Oswald and his team compared survey data on the life satisfaction of more than 900,000 citizens of 27 European countries from 1980 to 2011 with data on annual advertising spending in those nations over the same period. The researchers found an inverse connection between the two. The higher a country’s …

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Rein in advertising to help tackle climate crisis

Advertising needs to be controlled and changed to reduce its impact on the climate, according to a report released as consumers prepare to spend billions on Black Friday.

Mysogyny in adland – a hard-hitting account

Far from dissipating over the last decade, misogyny in the ad industry has simply mutated into something insidious, invisible, lurking in the shadows. It’s time to fire up the floodlights. https://zoescaman.substack.com/p/mad-men-furious-women?fbclid=IwAR3f51WLj-EnIbbLzInBPVs-RbcZTtUDMxJh7otfFNf5op5goi8IfbOciHE

Corporate climate pledges: greenwash, not action

Corporations are still far from trying seriously to offset their impact on the world. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/26/climate-crisis-green-light?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Mythocracy and its perils

By Lazar Dzamic Who the fuck am I? I am an ex-Mythocrat. I used to mythologise trivial things for a living. The profession we call ‘advertising’. I was a cognitive polluter. I’ve been in the industry for more than 30 years. I worked in big cities, the hubs of spending. I’ve seen the evolution of …

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Peak snake oil?

My ‘ping’ to Patrick Collister’s ‘pong’ on my previous article on ad industry’s ethical challenges. Disclaimer: Patrick is a dear friend, my former partner in crime at the Google ZOO and the person probably most responsible for my landing a job over there. I thank him for taking the time and trouble to engage in …

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